Interview Evergrey

Interview
Tom S. Englund
Evergrey

Lineup:
Rikard Zander Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Henrik Danhage Guitars, Backing Vocals
Tom S. Englund Vocals, Guitars
Michael Håkansson Bass
Jonas Ekdahl Drums

Tom S. Englund of Evergrey (Photo: Erika Kristen Watt)

Come Clarity May Tour
In Flames
Throwdown
Nevermore
Evergrey
Orbit Room (Grand Rapids, MI)
5/13/06
Interviewer: Karma E. Omowale
Photos: Erika Kristen Watt

“You always want more money, but you also want to write better songs for each and every album…that’s what we’re trying to do!”

Gothenburg Sweden’s Evergrey were once high amongst the ranks of melodeath now the band has turned in a new direction with their latest release, Monday Morning Apocalypse. During a COLD and rainy Saturday morning frontman Tom S. Englund graciously speaks to us from his recent nap about the new sound of the MMA in relation to the initial high disapproval rate from the fans, the current tour, etc. You can’t please everyone all the time but Mr. Englund tells us why it is more important to please yourself first. And no, the band is NOT suicidal or depressing, quite the contrary, read on to delve further into the world of Evergrey as we uncover this band’s humanity.

Karma: A lot has transpired since we last talked on the Iced Earth Tour back in 2004: A Night to Remember DVD/CD; European festivals; and now Monday Morning Apocalypse. How’s the tour going?

Tom: Good! I mean it’s bad weather [chuckles] and it’s been so since day one but I mean playing wise, we have had some technical problems with the first dates. We always have that, especially coming over here with the gear that don’t work on the same electric fucking… I don’t know what it is! But we pay people to take care of that so…

Karma: Well last night [Pierre's Entertainment Center in Fort Wayne, IN] was really good, right! There weren’t any technical issues there.

Tom: Yeah, last night was really good, yeah. Sometimes you play too early so people miss the shows and last night was one of the shows where people drove for several hours and missed it all because it said we were playing at 8 o’clock, whatever and we played a quarter to 7:00.

Karma: Unfortunately, we know that story all too well with us being one of the casualties. So how does it feel to be on tour with In Flames?

Tom: [Smiles] Great! I mean they’re great guys, I mean same town. Same backgrounds, I mean we’ve known each other pretty much all of our musical lives and you know, we’re just getting closer on this tour, which is cool! They’re great guys and treating us extremely well, everybody’s getting along extremely well. It’s a great tour package and it’s a good thing for us to be able to tour these smaller places and sort of broaden our touring. You know usually to go to these places, you usually never do. This is a secondary market and you know it’s a great thing to start with that and to come back to do the primary market in fall.

Karma: How did that show with Dark Tranquillity go? Mikael [Stanne] told us back in March you guys were going to do your first show together.

Tom: Good, not that many people, it was a huge place. It was like a 10,000-seater.

Tom: [Nods head] I don’t understand how the hell he could book a place that! But yeah, it was nice; it was the first time we played with them. I mean same thing there, they’re great people. We all are great people from Gothenburg! [Chuckles] That’s why! [Huge smile crosses his face]

Karma: So tell me, what does the S. stand for? I know it’s not Satan as stated on the DVD.

Karma: I’m willing to place a bet on that’s a big resounding NEJ! [We all laugh]

Karma: Well thanks for sharing that, after eleven years in, what have you come top learn about yourself and the current lineup?

Tom: That it takes a hell of a lot longer than eleven years to be a millionaire.

Tom: For instance, that’s one of the things. We’re getting there, we’re still having fun, that’s the main thing. You know you also have to make money and we do that now. We’ve been living off on this for the past three years which is…[pauses] what we aimed for when we started this. Of course, that’s a dream come true! You always want more money though, but you also want to write better songs for each and every album, hopefully. That’s what we’re trying to do! That’s what it feels like we’re succeeding with this one.

Karma: Last interview I had with you guys, Henrik stated that you guys wanted to write for this album and not be content for lack of better words with Night to Remember. How did you finally twist the label’s arm to do MMA?

Tom: Oh no, they were the ones that wanted us to record a new album. We did A Night to Remember, we toured for that, but not in America though. And uh, no I mean it was time for a new album and at the time we were in negations with a contract. We weren’t sure if we were going to stay with InsideOut. We had a lot offers from a lot of different labels and in the end, InsideOut paid a helluva lot of money. It would have been really stupid of us not to stay, just because of that. But we only signed for one album, so we’re pretty much free to go after this album so which is a great position to be in.

Karma: It’s probably one of your most radically different albums to date. I read a press release for the album where you said that you felt “caged”. I've always thought you were free to create the kind of music since Evergrey’s inception, do what you always wanted so I was hoping you could explain that.

Tom: Yeah, we’ve always done that. I mean that statement I really don’t agree with at all. I mean we’ve always written the kind of music we find to be the music that we should write [chuckles] you know! We write music in order to keep ourselves happy, always at first! And it’s just been a bonus that other people likes it as well. This album was no different. We did a lot of stuff since we released the last album and you know it’s like been two years since we had written for The Inner Circle album when we started to write for Monday Morning album. As you know, we did a live DVD and a live album and toured a lot. Of course, that will affect our songwriting and everything else as well. This is just where evolution has taken us today, and this is how we sound today because of…because of the evolution.

Karma: Well put. Going further with your evolution, some people on the MB wrote “Humans Fear Change”. We know this to be true but when you stay the same they bitch, when you change, they bitch… Can’t please ‘em all! It’s good that YOU are satisfied with what it is that you are producing. It’s really all that matters in the long run.

Tom: Absolutely! Otherwise, we may as well not do it at all! It’s a….[pauses] great privilege to release albums but we would never, ever release an album that we weren’t 100% happy with! And if we were just to play music, just for the fun of it, then we might as well play it and not ever release it. So people seem to think we’ve written an album that [pauses again] that we ourselves are not happy with which is beyond my comprehension that people could thinks so, you know! We’re the ones that’s gonna be touring with this album for the next couple of years. It takes up so much time, from us, [pauses] Evergrey and…and if we would spend that time being miserable, playing music that we don’t like, then we would be very, very stupid! So, at the same time, people are entitled to their opinions. We can’t really change what people think and we’re not hear to do that either. We’re here to, as I said, we’re here to play music. That’s the great thing with music, you can turn it off.

Karma: Very true! So is this direction one you plan on sticking with as far as a more “straightforward” approach?

Tom: We never plan anything, that’s the thing. We [pauses] but I think that this…is sort of direction we have always tried to, eh, be, you know. But as I said, it’s taken this long for this album to be able to sound like this. We never could have recorded this album to make it sound like this at the time of The Inner Circle album, cause you know, that’s how we sounded back then. So I can’t really answer what we’re gonna do for the next album, we might play jazz! I don’t know. We may find that fun! [Chuckles]

Karma: [Smiles] Why did you chose [Sanken] Sankquist and [Stefan] Glaumann and do you believe you would have been able to achieve the same sound for MMA using another?

Tom: I mean, [pauses] we felt that we needed to do something different in order for ourselves to stay hungry, if you will. Uh, [pauses] and that we do for the fans you know. We do that just so we can be on our toes and be 100% correct with our music. We, we try to do different things in order for it not to be a routine thing, understand?

Tom: We uh sat down and discussed what kind of producers, cause we never really had a producer for any of the other album.

Tom: So we sat down and discussed we might consider and all of us had an album, which included these two that we all brought up which lead us to call them to see if they were interested. And they weren’t at all to begin with! [Laughs]

Tom: Henrik was bugging them for a couple of weeks. [We all laugh] No, I mean we actually flew them down, I mean I was not impressed with him at all on the phone at all. So I more of less gave up on the whole idea of producing it with them. But Henrik got a feeling of some sort, I don’t know what it was so we flew them down to Gothenburg and sat down with them. Within a minute, we felt that these were the right guys to work with. I mean they have done a lot of shit [Clawfinger, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Rammstein] and I don’t mean “shit” in the sense of the word.

Tom: They’ve done a lot of stuff that is selling a lot of albums. I mean that’s why we’re here as well, to try to sell a lot of albums…to answer your question, it was a great contribution to have them. I mean they basically pointed out small things that we were too involved to see. They didn’t cut down songs, I mean we wrote the songs before they came in and so you know, they sort of refined the songs, made them better.

Karma: Was the current direction/sound a unanimous decision or was it something that happened as you were writing the songs?

Tom: Yes, definitely. It’s not a thing that we sit down and have Monday morning meeting. [We all laugh] Let’s sound like this today, it’s something that, you know, just happens.

Karma: Knowing the concept of the album does not tie into the cover art, it’s interesting to see you are beaten up in a lineup…the aftermath. Just a sidebar, the general tone of the album is quite apologetic in nature.

Tom: Ja, the same thing there. We felt we have done all these covers with fucking dragons and demons and triangles and rainbows and shit! [We all have a hearty chuckle] We wanted to do something that would stick out. If you saw a shelf of two hundred records, you know you would immediately go off to this and at least look at it. We’re not that good looking, so we could be naked on it so no one would notice! [Hysterical laughter erupts] So for the first time you can maybe see some sort of ironic touch to Evergrey. Evergrey in other people’s eyes has always been so fucking serious and people think we are suicidal and whatnot…you know, we’re a happy bunch of guys and this was just a fun way for us to make people angry.

Karma: Hmm…was Mattias [Norén] left up to his own creative devices for this one?

Tom: No, actually he wasn't the one taking the photos or anything [Bingo Rimér] He did the booklet. He pieced and puzzled together the cover as well. A girl photographer, the Swedish Hugh Heffner took the photos.

Karma: Oh, okay. Carina’s voice seems to be less prominent than in recent releases, was it a conscious effort on your part?

Tom: No, but I mean we use Carina if we feel it’s necessary for the song. Just as well with the guitar solos or whatever, grand pianos. For the last album, we wanted to use a lot of authentic strings and we also used Carina quite a lot for that album. For this album, we didn’t find that many things for her to do. We’ll not just squeeze her in just to have her there. It has to be for the benefit of the song, otherwise I mean we don’t have too many guitar solos or any guitar solos if it doesn’t benefit the song same goes with Carina.

Karma: Speaking of guitar solos, etc. Unless my ears are deceiving me, there seems to be a lot less shredding on this album…

Tom: [Disbelief washes over his countenance]…Oh yeah? I think it’s a lot more shredding, at least guitar wise. We, the guitar solos that we do on this album is by far the most technical songs we have ever done. [Chuckles] I know that because I’ve been trying to practice them and it’s giving me a hard time.

Karma: Have you had an easier time with the riffs, etc, now that you are on the road and can try it out live?

Tom: Yeah, we practiced; I mean we did this Guitar World thing so we have to practice a lot of shit, so… You know, now it really pays off, now you don’t really have to think about it that much.

Karma: What is “Dark I Walk You Through” about? One of the best imagery laden apology songs I’ve heard to date.

Tom: [Smiles] It’s actually about a guy who looses his daughter in a car accident after he leaves his daughter at school. I think an event like that makes you think ‘What have you done wrong’ and what you wanted to say and what you didn’t have the chance to say because she was brought away, taken away. It’s not that apologizing really, it’s about…well it is! [At this point Rikard boards the bus from a midday shopping trip from the mall across the street with a sizable Victoria’s Secret bag in tow] Where have you been?

Tom: [Laughs hysterically and raises his voice several octaves] “Oh Michael”! [Boisterous laughter fills the bus]

Rikard: [Winks his eye] I’ll be out in a couple of minutes! [He then disappears closing the door behind him]

Tom: Have Michael come out too! [Composes himself] Well as I said it’s about remorse, not being able to say the things he wanted to say before she died.

Tom: It’s actually [Rikard’s] grandma who died. He played that song at her funeral and we recorded that “Closure” song, uh, he wanted to record this piece for his mom, so we never heard it. So when he started playing it, we were like, “Damn, we’ve got to have that.”, so we asked him if it was all right.

Karma: Wow, that’s so cool for him to be able to do something so meaningful for his family.

Karma: How does it feel to have a complete contributing unit now especially with Jonas being in the band especially for the making of this album?

Tom: Yeah, it’s a great thing! [Beams] It makes us stronger, it makes us…for the first time in Evergrey’s career, you know for the last two years, we’ve been a unit that had the same goals and 100% exact, the same aim! We know what we want to do and everybody’s there and everybody’s sacrificed just as much as anybody else now. It’s a great thing! It’s a thing that makes us stronger, it makes us more powerful as a group.

Tom: Oh thank you, it’s bonus track but for the next pressing, it won’t be there.

Karma: Well for those that are lucky enough to get this version… [We all laugh] What's your favorite song off the album and why?

Tom: Hmmm. [Thinks for a moment] Favorite song, that’s really hard! I mean you can ask me tomorrow and I will have a different answer. But I will say “In Remembrance” because that’s the song which…that…how shall I put it? When we were recording the demos for it, it was a so-so song we all thought but that’s the song that happened the most to in the studio with all the string arrangements and everything. We pretty much rewrote the whole song in the studio except for the chorus. Yeah, I like it a lot, it’s a cool song!

Karma: No doubt, it is! Are there any new projects coming down the pike at Division One?

Tom: Uhm, I mean just recorded an English band…can’t remember the name now. They were supposed to change names so I better not say anything. [Chuckles] And then we did a second Moonlight Agony CD and then when we come home we’re going to mix that and… And then we have so much to do with Evergrey for this summer and so we don’t have that much time to do anything with the studio. But we’ll see [smiles] hopefully!

Karma: Here’s a quick Speed Round of Questions, do you believe in the afterlife?

Tom: [Pauses] Hmmm… Quick question, not a quick answer! [We all laugh] Do I believe in that? I don’t what to believe. What I believe is that if we’re here for this amount of time just for it to end, it would seem really stupid, you know. Going through all these phases of life trying to get better as a person for everyday and then just ends, I don’t know. But I don’t think that we’ll end up in heaven, if that’s what you’re asking.

Tom: Probably, I mean not rather [We all laugh] But that’s probably where we’re going, going down! Yup!!

Karma: Uhmmm…that wasn’t one of the questions Tom! [We all die laughing]

Tom: Well you can add that! [We all laugh] So creation then, because that’s what they do when you fuck! [We all lose it at this point] Right?

Karma: [Struggling to recompose myself] I suspect so, you got me there! [Laughs] Were you named after anyone?

Tom: Actually I played…that’s a LOT of CD’s that I’ve done that with, but I mean I bought the Pink Floyd’s Momentary Lapse of Reason album and the Division Bell about five times, because I’ve lost and fucking…but now I’ve got it on my iPod so you know, [chuckles] hopefully it will stay there.

Tom: I think the Katatonia album [The Great Cold Distance] is a fucking masterpiece.

Tom: [Smiles] I think the new In Flames album [Come Clarity] is great as well! What else do we have? That’s pretty much it, actually. I have a friend that loaded my iPod with so much stuff, I haven’t even had the time, I’ve only listened to about a third of it. But the Katatonia album is one I’ve been listening to a lot.

Tom: Yeah, we played together for…a couple of weeks ago. I mean I also played there but at least I went to see their show, so.

Karma: [Smiles] Okay. If Evergrey were a cocktail, which drink would you be?

Tom: [Laughs] Which drink would we be, anything that has fluid in it and contains alcohol, I would say you could mix red wine and vodka… [Laughs] yeah, there’s a new Evergrey drink, red wine, vodka, and cream on top.

Karma: [Scrunches up brow] That’s quite the noxious mix! [We all laugh]

Tom: Ask Michael, he’s drank that a lot. [Like a little boy he snickers as he knows that he grossed some girls out]

Karma: If not music then what and what would your bandmates be doing if it were not for Evergrey/music?

Tom: If not music? I can’t really see myself doing anything else. I’ve been doing this for such a long period of time now so…I actually played football…soccer and I got injured so actually that’s why I started playing guitar, so probably football…uhmm, soccer. And what was the second part of the question?

Tom: [Face deadpans] They would be bums, all of them! [We all laugh] Three bums, yes!

Tom: According to Henrik, fantastic, great and awesome he would say. I hope! [Laughter ensues]

Karma: I’m sure he would! Being a frontman/guitarist who in your opinion epitomizes the role?

Karma: Share something about yourself that you would not mind your fans knowing about you.

Tom: Honestly, I think they know more about me than I know about myself sometimes! But it would be interesting for them to know that I’m an educated waiter, and Michael and Henrik are chefs so we can have a great party on the bus. We actually had a great BBQ with In Flames down by a lake. We’re awesome cook!

Karma: Okay, if you could commission a band to do an Evergrey cover, who would do it and which song would it be?

Tom: [Long pause] Hmmm…I would like to have Rammstein do “In Remembrance”.

Karma: Hmm…interesting answer, here’s another role reversals question, if you could interview anyone, who would you geek out with and what would be the one thing that you’d like to pick their brain?

Tom: I would like to interview…oh fuck, [pauses and laughs] I’m not that interested in other people! Hmm…I would like to interview Glen Benton and see if he’s satisfied with his cross!

Karma: Okay! That’s a good one Tom! Do you have any special messages to your fans?

Tom: Uhmm…messages. Buy the album, or we’ll come and beat you up! That’s good enough! [Smiles]