Henrik: [With hesitation] This is Henrik Danhage from Evergrey.

Karma: Yes, I know. Hej!

Henrik: You sound sleepy.

Karma: Ja! I am!! Sorry this would be the first the first time I have spoken today! [Laughs]

Henrik: [Nervously laughs] I couldn’t believe when they told me to call at 1:00, I thought he [Eric Corbin from InsideOut Music America] was joking. It’s like very early there isn’t it?

Karma: It’s like 6:00 in the morning here but that’s okay, it’s called sacrifice! [We both laugh] Well, välkommen tillbaka FourteenG, Henrik!

Henrik: [Laughs heartily] Okay, cool!! [Continues to laugh] Thank you.

Karma: Eric said that you just got back from holiday over the weekend, I am curious; you lie out and catch a tan in Sverige?

Henrik: Yeah, sure!

Karma: Really?

Henrik: It’s summer here now, next weekend we have Midsommer.

Karma: That’s your holiday, right.

Henrik: Yeah, here in Sweden it. It’s real nice, I was on a boat and my cell phone died. I was on a really nice island with my family and getting tanned… The weather’s really good here especially in the south, where we live, in Gothenburg, it’s perfect for the exception of today, it’s raining but it’s the first time in two weeks.

Karma: Well I guess it can’t be perfect all of the time. [We both laugh] Much has transpired since the last interview, considering it was a week before A Touch of Blessing was released since we last spoke.

Henrik: Yeah.

Karma: You guys recently released the audio CD of A Night to Remember and more recently with the DVD being released on 24^th of May, you guys have toured and done a many of festival in Europe since… Congrats, on the success on the CD and DVD in Sverige. I heard the DVD hit #1 on the charts over there.

Henrik: Yeah, we stayed at #1 for two weeks and went down to #4 and this is the fourth week that it’s out here and think we’re down to #9 now. It’s still on the Top 10 of most selling music DVDs here. It’s a big thing over here, you know. It’s really good.

Karma: That’s awesome. How have sales been for both CD/DVD?

Henrik: There good. I think we’ve sold a couple 1,000. It’s hard to give the exact figures but we won’t know for a couple of months. It can be anything from 1,001 to… what I think maybe 2,000.

Karma: Those are amazing numbers for a music DVD.

Henrik: Exactly, you can see that when you look into the charts and see what other bands and artists are on there, you know. There are really big major artists even outside of the metal world like Bruce Springsteen…it’s very good that we are able to stay up there, you know.

Karma: Definitely! When are you guys coming back to the States? I as well as the rest of the fans here are seemingly going through withdrawal.

Henrik: [Chuckles] We’re just waiting for a good tour. Personally, I don’t think it would be a good idea to go over there right now and do a headline tour. I would rather see that we go with a bigger band at least one more time and then do the headline tour. There are a lot of bands coming over and the amount of money they pay for those tours… If you look what kind of people, they draw. I mean as far as how many people attend the shows, you tend to lose a lot of money. I would rather spend the money on having a big crowd and gaining more fans of course. We’re still a small band, in that sense you know. We have a lot of confidence that we can go and headline but as far as the States are concerned, I think we should at least do one more one more headlining for a bigger band.

Karma: If the tour fairies would hear your prayers, whom would you like to tour with?

Henrik: It would be great to be with a band like Maiden or if we would have done the Priest tour, you know. I would really think that we could do that as well. It just comes down to the money, you know.

Karma: Of course, that is very much understood.

Henrik: We would go on any tour but basically but it just has to be some thought put into it. Not to spend all of the money on doing a couple of clubs where only 200 people would show up to, you know! In that case, it's probably better to save the money and just spend it more wisely a couple of months later. It's always hard, because sometimes we just sit around and wait and all of a sudden a year's gone by and all of the good opportunities have just passed us [by]. So it's a fine line there, you know.

I love touring in the States, it's very easy for me to be out in the States. You always get the same things in every town. It's not like going to Europe, where you find something you're gonna like and you're only gonna be able to have it for one or two days. It just doesn’t happen that way in this country. Over there, you have all of the same shit you can get all over. [Chuckles] It's easier to tour over in America and it's nice and I like the people, it's good.

Karma: Going back to A Night to Remember, where there any other songs that didn't make the cut? The ones chosen do span your entire career discography wise…

Henrik: …nope! All of the songs we played that night were on the DVD. We put the songs that we felt that were best for that night. Yeah, a lot of the songs we'd be playing for all these years, and some of the songs were for the first time that night. We just made a list of the songs the band liked the most, just to make a good set. And I really think did pretty good.

Karma: Oh, definitely! Speaking of songs you had never played before, you include "As I Lie Here Bleeding" in the set. In the last interview I had with you, Tom insisted that song would never be played live.

Henrik: No…

Karma: …Oh really?

Henrik: The thing is that we did it the first gig that Jonas did with us down in Helsingborg in Sweden. We played it for the first time live [then] but it's got to have the vibe. In which I really cannot understand now because it's a really good live song.

Karma: Definitely! It came out very well on the DVD.

Henrik: Yeah, and the crowd always really, really get into that song. It was probably a combination of we really hadn't rehearsed enough or there was a lot of tension due to it was the first gig for Jonas. So we played it that first night and then we didn't play it for almost two years. Hen we decided to try it again when we were listening to the album Recreation Day. We were like, "Maybe we should try that again", it's the same thing we did with "Mislead" as well. Once we tried it and we were like, "Oh, it's not gonna happen again". So we ditched it and then we brought it back to life two years later.

Karma: Glad you resurrected it!! [We both laugh] That's a great song.

Henrik: Yeah, it's good! It's just a nice vibe to it you know. Some songs need some time. [Chuckles]

Karma: Like a fine wine! [Uproarious laughter ensues from both parties]

Henrik: Yeah!

Karma: It must have been nice to have Carina [Englund, Tom’s wife] in the choir, especially for her duet with Tom on "Every Tear That Falls".

Henrik: Yeah, that was great! [Pauses] I still got…get goose bumps when I see it. I have only seen it two times though. We've been seeing that tour for so many times now but when I watched it with fans, I really get shivers going, you know. It's a really nice vibe to the song and Carina being out there on stage as well really adds something. We knew a lot of fans wanted to see that as well, so it was very nice to be able to do that.

Karma: Yeah, that's awesome! While we are still on the subject of older songs, "Trilogy of the Damned", what made take three ballads and roll them all into one?

Karma: It will buy you a lot of time if needed the song is quite long.

Henrik: Yeah, it's a long song, we've really been using it as a time filler sometimes as well. I really like it…and so does the crowd. It was a good move but it wasn't really like we had a big master plan and spent a lot of weeks doing it, it was just really slapped together.

Karma: Well, that's a damn good outcome for something to have just been slapped together! [We both laugh] Love concept of 5-point star that incorporates all five releases.

Henrik: Yeah?

Henrik: I would have to say it was Tom's idea. The original look was kind of similar but when looked at it, and when he was having it as a screensaver or something he realized, "Oh, it almost looks like a pentagram!" so he organized it so that it became a real pentagram. For all of the releases for Evergrey, Tom has a big input so that I would have to say that we use Mattias because he can really do it. He can make it happen, we don't have the technical knowledge of putting it together. As far as all of the ideas go, I would have to say it's at least 90% Evergrey's ideas and input and Mattias makes them come alive. He is really good in understanding what we want and he has done a lot of really nice covers.

Henrik: We were happy to work with him because he is very good.

Karma: And like you said, he understands what you are trying to get across and can make your ideas come to life.

Henrik: Yeah, because we could see that a couple of years ago. In my opinion, a lot of the Evergrey covers came out and there were a lot of other bands using Matthias as well. I think it's really cool that we still use Matthias but our covers don’t look like anyone else's.

Karma: This is true; there is still something unique about your covers.

Henrik: Yes. Maybe other bands use him because he has done other things where we use him because he can understand what we want. I think that's a big difference.

Karma: It also helps when you have years behind the working relationship.

Henrik: Yeah, exactly! I mean it's like the names that we throw in between us, it's very easy. We're like, "Oh well maybe it should be a little more grey there and put out that little guy there. Whatever!" It's very convenient, he understands what we want. I think we're going to continue working with him. If it's not broken, don't fix it, you know.

Karma: Exactly!

Henrik: Don't fix it if it's not broken, you know! [We both laugh]

Karma: When are you guys going back into the studio? When can we expect a new release?

Henrik: It all depends, we were…the company wants us to record a CD right now and I really don't see the reason why. We just gave the fans and the company two products within three months. The band really wants to go out and tour now. I think we put too much time and effort into this and two products are way too good just to be sent into the grave, you know.

Karma: Definitely!

Henrik: To me they need to work more on the promotions! Of course we're gonna go out and at least do a tour in the States and then follow it up with gigs in Europe. We're discussing it with the management of the company because we are not seeing eye to eye right now.

Karma: Will the upcoming release also be a concept album; I mean I know it may be too early to tell.

Henrik: Yeah, it's hard to tell. It all depends at what time Tom starts working on the lyrics I would say. It still needs some kind of research and he has never really just slapped anything together, you know. He always puts effort into the lyrics. So it is really hard to say but we have been working me and Tom. I have concepts as well but we haven't really started making any songs. We've started with one and it's kind of a weird skeleton of a song right now. Ehhhhhhhh, it's good but it still needs a lot of work to it. It's like I told you, we just released the DVD a month ago and we're not really in the space of writing songs right now.

Karma: Gotcha! So as far as Caparison is concerned, do you and Tom provide the specs for the guitars?

Henrik: We can use pretty much use some of the models that they have. We fell in love with the model that's based on a Horus. What I do, I mean the frets on a guitar are different, the inlays and knobs positions are changed, and woods, we have different pickups in them. The body material and neck material are different from like what you buy in the store. But as far as the shapes, I've been bugging the guy that makes the guitar for three years now that I want a star guitar like the one that Chris Holmes [W.A.S.P. guitarist] used. He don't make them for me. [We both chuckle] So, the signature guitars that we have right now are based on one of the stock models that we jazzed up. It's very good because it's made for my specs as far as the thickness of the neck and all that. It's really like having my dream guitar built like six or seven times over because he provides us with a lot of guitars.

Karma: So then your specific guitars are not available commercially then are they?

Henrik: I think there is a certain ordering process that you can do. [Henrik's entire sudden cell phone goes off all of a sudden] I'm sorry, can you hold on for one second?

Karma: Sure.

Henrik: [Quickly speaks in Swedish to the other person on the phone] That was my fiancée. [Said bashfully]

Karma: Ahhhh!!

Henrik: So, okay back now. I think that you can order it from the factory or something like that you know. But for my knowledge, I don't think you can go to the store and buy it.

Karma: Okay. Who comes up with the guitar solos? There seems to be friendly competition between you and Tom.

Henrik: I think that we…Tom doesn’t play that much lead if we don't tell him. I think it's because he has his songs in a really nice style and it's a big part of the Evergrey sound. So I don't think it would be the same if I was doing all of the leads. Plus I think it's really cool when you have two guitar players it should be like two guitar players especially when there are two guitar players that can play lead as well. I think…what we usually do is there's maybe a part that we really want to have like, "Oh, I wanna play lead for that" then I do that but most of the time it's like, "Oh, maybe you should do it on this one!" [Laughs] It's not like I would rather hear him play than hear me and I think he's the other way around as well you know. It's not like we sit there and practice a lot and trade riffs. We only play guitar together when there is a specific reason like writing a song or warming up for a gig and stuff like that. So it's not like he comes over to my house and we jam, you know. [Laughter ensues]

Karma: Speaking of guitars, what's in your guitar case?

Henrik: My guitar case? Right now I wouldn't know you should ask my tech. [Hearty guffaw ensues] But I think I have my guitar, I don't have like a regular guitar case, I have one of those big double slide cases so what I think is in there is two of my guitars, the straps attached to those guitars and little Marshall amp. And when I bring my guitars home, I have them in one of those goofy gig bags, you know and one of those tiny little practicing Marshall amps and a cord. [Snickers]

Karma: How’s Deathdestruction going? [Side project with Jonas Ekdahl, Jimmie Strimell (Nightrage vocalist) and Fredrik Larsson ex-HammerFall bassist]

Henrik: It's going! We still haven't mixed the album, we're gonna wait until we have a deal there. I think that I have three or four guitar solos as well that I have to cut. I really don't know but I don’t see the reason of spending a lot of time on that now until we have a deal.

Karma: Makes sense.

Henrik: I think we have like fourteen or fifteen songs.

Karma: Oh wow!

Henrik: Yeah! [Can hear the excitement in his voice] But the whole album is ready, we're just waiting for a nice company to put it out, you know. I mean we've been rather lazy as well I do have to admit. We're out doing other things and the other guy, the singer, is just now joining as well. It is a good band. It's really funny because we haven’t rehearsed or anything we should. We were talking about that, doing a couple of rehearsals together during the summer, within a month, so we're probably gonna do that. It's totally different than…it's cool! It's really fun playing brutal music again like I did before I joined Evergrey, you know.

Karma: So I hear that the sound can be best described as black metal?

Henrik: Yeah, I would say maybe it has that feeling of black metal in it, that coldness. It's much more groovier.

Karma: Ohh!

Henrik: More of a Pantera, more of that combined with the black metal, I mean there's a lot of blast beats and stuff going on as well. But it's more American death metal with a lot of that bluesy groove going on. It's like I would say Pantera. The singer is amazing!

Karma: Now is Rikard still involved?

Henrik: No.

Karma: Oh.

Henrik: He was on the first two songs or something like that, and when the album finally comes out, Rikard is going to be on that song of course. I mean that was the first thing that we did and we're just going to leave that as it is, you know. He was… It's kinda funny because I think Deathdestruction is the only band that… He tells everybody that we fired him, you know but we tell everybody that he quit. Usually it's the other way around [changes inflection of his voice to a gruff bitchy tone] "I quit that fuckin' band!" you know. [Hysterical laughter] And the band tells the media that no, no, we fired his ass. Here it's the total opposite because it's like [changes voice to saddened timbre] "You fired me guys!" [Snickers] From the point that we started making the songs, it turned out that it got more serious as far as the riffing and all of that other stuff and Rikard wasn't up for that at all. He's really not a death metal vocalist either so… it was too serious and he really didn’t want to have anything to do with that, you know!

Karma: Understood!

Henrik: Yeah, it's good!

Karma: What would be one word that would sum up your personality?

Henrik: Ohh, my own personality?

Karma: Yes.

Henrik: I would say, friendly I would say.

Karma: Top five favorite movies?

Henrik: Oh my god! [Laughs] In no particular order, I would go with the Godfather Trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, it's a great movie!

Karma: Yes it is.

Henrik: Ummm, Silence of the Lambs, Private Parts with Howard Stern, I love that movie! And uhhh…this is hard!

Karma: The last one always is!

Henrik: Uhh, maybe Cape Fear. That's it for today, it's always changing.

Karma: What's your all time favorite Evergrey song?

Henrik: I really like "The Shocking Truth". Yeah!!

Karma: What is that you really like about it?

Henrik: I like the whole vibe about it and the way it sounds and if I were on that CD it wouldn't have sounded that way at all! And I really like it. [He then sneezes violently]

Karma: Bless you!

Henrik: Oh thank you. It's a nice calm song and that is the thing that I like the most about Evergrey is that sad soulful kind of mourning almost like kind of sound, you know.

Karma: Completely!

Henrik: I like it when we do the heavy shit as well. I really like to have Tom singing in those calm songs as well.

Karma: It is beautiful.

Henrik: Exactly!

Karma: If you could commission another band to cover an Evergrey song, who would do it and which song would you choose. However, I am thinking one of two things will have to happen, you could choose a singer that would be able to nail Tom's part or a band like Dimmu Borgir to totally change it.

Henrik: I think it would be real funny to have some band like Hate Eternal, could jazz up one of our songs.

Karma: Wow!! Which song would they do?

Henrik: Which song, hmmmm, they are so fucking good with the black metal! Maybe they should take one of the ballads and make it real doomy and Candlemass with Messiah Marcolin, I'd like to see them do an Evergrey song as well. That's hard, I never thought of that. [Laughs]

Karma: Well there you go, something to think about now…

Henrik: Yeah. I would chose Hate Eternal and Candlemass doing whatever song.

Karma: How many and on which day did you blow out your birthday candles?

Henrik: How many?

Karma: And which day.

Henrik: I had my birthday a couple days ago on the 15^th.

Karma: Oh, wow!! Happy Belated Birthday!!

Henrik: Oh thank you! I turned 32.

Karma: Or shall I say, grattis på födelsedagen!

Henrik: [Laughs] Yeah, that's good!! Thank you.

Karma: What did you grow up listening to?

Henrik: My first record that I got from my grandfather was Kiss. Ha ha! I think I was fffff-five I believe. I didn't understand the music but the pictures, I mean they looked so cool, so I almost died. After that, I mean I listened to a lot of metal bands you know or maybe hard rock metal bands like Loudness and later on all of the good hair bands that could play!

Karma: Exactly!

Henrik: They weren't only pretty! I always loved RATT for instance, Winger was great.

Karma: Oh yes!!!

Henrik: They were always the gun slingers as well. They all had to be able to play as well. Then I got into Pantera and those guys. All of the extreme metal came kind of late for me. I think I was eighteen or something like that but I got Cowboys From Hell. A couple of years later it changed when I first the EP from Meshuggah, None. It really changed my whole outlook. I mean oh my god, they were soooo good. They really have their shit together as well.

Karma: And different.

Henrik: Very different. I always like…as long as it's well played and you can hear that it's a good constructed song and it doesn't matter if it's a difficult song or a very easy song, as long as it's well crafted. I love Jeff Buckley and I love Sting, you know. In the CD player, I had the latest Meshuggah CD, I took that out and put in the CD with Desmond Child, and some other fucking one like Mitch Malloy I believe. I mean good songs are good songs and I have a lot of CD's that are like rock or pop as well mixed with all of the death metal and black metal. I just like music, you know!

Karma: Well that answers the next question of who is in you CD player right now.

Henrik: Well maybe we shouldn't say Desmond Child! [We both laugh hysterically] I'm going down today to… I don't really know what you call them in the States when you get some people go in and put in an amount of money in a store, and then you get a gift card. The band went into the store and paid a couple hundreds and I can go in and get whatever I want.

Karma: They are called gift certificates here.

Karma: It's damn good CD.

Henrik: I've only heard a couple of songs off that one but I really like that. And there are some others…[laughs sheepishly] I'm going to buy the new Stereophonics as well. Music is music, I mean I'm not one of those guys that has to listen to a certain band. I don't give a fuck about that! Good music is good music, you know!

Karma: If you could produce anyone else's CD, whom would you choose?

Henrik: Oh my god, this is hard! [Laughs] Oh, I really don't know. I would really like to be involved in making a good pop/rock album.

Karma: Really?

Henrik: With me as the only guitar player and maybe doing a little, little singing as well. Some really sweet, calm songs as well. I would probably have Tom singing a couple of songs as well. But it would probably be like always, producing another Evergrey album because that what I like right now.

Karma: What was your first job?

Henrik: Real job or summer?

Karma: Let's say the first one you had making money.

Henrik: Okay, I think I was fifteen and I took care of litter on the street and painting, stuff like that. I did that for a whole summer just to be able to buy a guitar. I didn't get that much, so my parents had to pay for half the guitar you know. So I earned my guitar.

Karma: There you go!!

Henrik: And then I worked a lot of years as a chef as well.

Karma: Oh!

Henrik: Yes, so that's the only thing that I've pretty much been doing. I was head of a school cafeteria as well which was really nice, very good working hours you know!

Karma: I can imagine, especially in the summertime you'd have to yourself.

Henrik: Exactly! I could go on vacation then.

Karma: Favorite drink?

Henrik: Tequila straight up I would say.

Karma: Favorite food?

Henrik: Lately I've been eating a lot of Thai food, for right now. So yeah I would say that and traditional Swedish food like meatballs and mashed potatoes. I mean what do you call that? No fattening foods but real food like potatoes and gravy…

Karma: Food that will stick to your bones.

Henrik: Yeah, exactly!

Karma: What is your middle name?

Henrik: My name is Gustav, it's an old Swedish name. It's not something that I'm really proud about. The guys really make a lot of fun of me because it's a really old ugly name here. [Laughter ensues]

Karma: If you could turn back the hands of time, would you change a thing?

Henrik: Ummm, I'm in a good place right now as far as my family and old friends and the band. So no, maybe I should have swallowed a couple of times before I said some things. I've probably said and hurt a lot of people sometimes. Other than that I am really happy! I'm in a good place.

Karma: Congratulations on your engagement as well, that is so awesome.

Henrik: Oh, oh, thank you!

Karma: Tack så mycket för intervjun!

Henrik: Thank you.

I'd like to thank Henrik for this interview and Eric Corbin at InsideOut for setting it up.

• Click here for new (2006) interview with Tom

• here for the first interview with Tom & Henrik