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| At War With Reality drops October 28. |
Tomas Lindberg, singer for At the Gates since its inception, took some of his time to talk with MuzikDizcovery staff writer Alex Newton about the new record, life in At the Gates, and which new bands and albums he enjoys.
A: What’s it like to make an album after watching hundreds of bands build upon the sound of Slaughter of the Soul?
T: We are really what you would call down-to-earth people. We’re not the kind of band that thinks of ourselves in third-person, do you know what I’m saying? We know that people are inspired in some way by At the Gates, and we’re very humbled, but we don’t let it get to us at all. We try to create what is natural and honest for us. I think that’s the only way to achieve, to create something for yourself. One idea that we did with this was that we had everything done before we said, in public, that we are doing it. That gave us as much time as we needed When we said “we are doing the record,” we already had it with us. That helped with the pressure, you know?
A: Have any other bands or artists influenced the sound of At War With Reality that weren’ around for Slaughter?
T: It sounds very generic to say, but I think that everything that you do, that you listen to, creeps into your songs no matter what. But there’s not intentional stuff, like ‘we have discovered this band since so there’s going to be things that sound like that band.’ It’s never that intentional. I would say the main influences are still the same. The main metal is still the old records, and the more progressive stuff is still the same. We know where we want to be as a band, but of course you get influenced by other stuff more emotionally, maybe. You hear an arrangement and think, ‘oh that’s a great idea to go into a bridge like that’ and then you write your own stuff that’s totally different so people don’t even notice the influence.
But of course there are a lot of things that inspire you. You hear a lot of the new bands that are really good…it’s more a feeling than the actual sounds. We’ve always been about moving forward, and not just for the sake of it. It has to make sense, as well. In a way, I think, when we did Slaughter of the Soul, we were moving ahead to create something our own again, a little more straightforward. If you think about it, maybe this is the album that goes between some things and Slaughter of the Soul emotionally. It’s not one hundred percent aggression. It has some more of that darkness but it’s still fast and furious.
A: Do you have any regrets about calling it quits after Slaughter?
T: No. I mean, a lot of stuff has happened in all these years. A lot of additional things personally, as well. I educated myself, started a family, got involved in a lot of different projects. I don’t think it would have been as special…I mean, maybe we would have produced one or two more good records in the 90’s and become watered down…shit, who knows?
A: Right. For instance, a lot of people have had a mixed reaction to In Flames’ new record…like, “we've all heard these ideas before.”
T: I think In Flames…and you know, we’re friends, we hang out, they’re cool people. But I don’t really listen to their band even though I like the people in it. I hear that they are surprised in their reaction to [the criticisms] though. If the last In Flames record you heard was The Jester Race, and then you hear this new one, then I understand the surprise. But if you have listened to all the records in their whole career, then you know exactly what to expect. It’s been going on for a while. It’s changed, I think. It’s one thing if you leave a band if you don’t like their new direction, but I don’t see the point in being upset about it. Listen to something else. It doesn’t make their old records worse. That’s my idea.
A: Who in today's death metal scene has really impressed you?
T: There’s a lot of stuff. I would say that death metal has come a little bit full-circle. When we did Slaughter of the Soul, the scene was beginning to become a little…generic. Everything was starting to sound a little bit the same, going through the motions kind of thing. Then everything died away a little bit and went super underground. There was all these elitist ideas being thrown around. Now it’s crept back into this creative atmosphere again, where you see a lot of bands expressing themselves more in different ways. You have Morbus Chron, from Sweden, for example. You have Obliteration from Norway. There are just tons a great bands trying new stuff but still being death metal. I think it’s great. It’s true to the genre, the songs, but still moving forward. I’m really impressed by it, actually.
A: At War With Reality is a top contender for many people’s Best of 2014 lists. Who’s on yours?
(laughs) My problem is that I keep losing track of which year albums were released. I think Black Death Horizon by Obliteration…if it was released this year? I like that album a lot. I also think the new Morbus Chron is a fantastic record. The new Swans record, that one is also fantasic. I would say Bonesaw, but I don’t think they have released a full-length record this year. I really like the new one of Panopticon as well. Horseback released a great record…that’s a lot of records, right? Is that okay?
*Black Death Horizon was released in November 2013, which is good enough for me.
*Black Death Horizon was released in November 2013, which is good enough for me.
T: What is one city that you’d like to play in that you haven’t gotten to yet?
I mean, the world is a big place (laughs). We’ve been to a lot of cool places, At the Gates. South America, Australia, Japan, South Korea, China. Of course, the West – Canada was fantastic when we went there. We went to Iceland, and that was great. We’re going to South Africa next year, which is going to be crazy. I think places that we’ve never ever been to, like India. That would be amazing. Other places in Africa…are there still places other than South Africa with our fans? I don’t know. But somewhere like that. We’re going to Korea next year, and I’ve never been there. That will be interesting. There are a lot of cool venues that I’ve heard about that I haven’t been to. The Saint Vitus bar in New York, I hear is very cool. There are a lot of places, actually, yeah.
A: Are there any bands you’d like to tour with?
T: There’s a lot of bands that I’d love to tour with. If you know me, you know I have a very eclectic music taste and it would be very interesting to play with a band that’s very heavy in another sense like Swans, to do something else, something really different. But in metal scene, we’re about to go on tour with Triptykon and Morbus Chron. It’s going to be a great tour, they’re great bands. Hopefully we can pick up some U.S. bands when we come over next year. There are a lot of great bands out there that we want to tour with. We’ve tried to bring Obliteration on tour but we haven’t been able to…but we asked them, so hopefully that will happen.
A: If you guys get a chance, I’d like to make a personal appeal for you to bring Kalmah around. They’re a band that I really, really like, and I think a lot of people do, but they haven’t gotten a chance yet.
T: Ah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah…I will definitely think about that! The problem with these kinds of tours is that, you know, the record agencies want the bands that have new albums out at exactly the same time, so you need to figure out all that sort of stuff. But we try to pick the bands we tour with as much as possible…to create diversity on the bill, to have the same sort of aura throughout the evening. It’s a sense of urgency and honesty and creativity in the bands we choose, and that’s something we hope to continue with.
