In Flames Interview!

Evergrey, September 1st 2003 @ Club Rockit

Evergrey is easily one of the wickedest live shows I've ever seen! Despite the *tiny* stage and stifling heat, they managed to get the crowd insanely revved up right away! Absolutely mind-blowing performance by them - wow, I honestly wish I could witness that again!
Ryan and I interviewed Rikard, their new keyboardist - he was a bit shy and quiet at first, butt later proved to be a pretty funny guy! He even offered us drinks when we got into the tourbus! ...repeatedly! Later when we were inside the venue, Tom also showed us how he earned the nickname "Fastbeer". ;) Speaking of which... that man's voice is God-like. That's a fact.

Ryan: How did you guys come up with the idea of doing the Trilogy of the Damned?
Rikard: Well actually, it's a Japanese bonus track from the In Search of Truth album because usually records are so expensive there, so they want something extra. And now when we did the limited edition, we wanted to give people some extra material, so we just used that song... so it was recorded in the same period of time as In Search of Truth.
Tina: Have you guys played Japan a lot??
Rikard: No... never! [laughs]
Never? haha! We were just talking to Mike from Arch Enemy, and he was saying how they're so much more well known in Japan than here...
Yeah... yeah. Well, Evergrey has never really hit it off there, so unfortunately we've never been to Japan. I mean as soon as someone wants us to go, we will go you know? [laughs]
Oh so is it the label who tells you where to go?

prog, y'know? We don't think so, when we write music, that now we're gonna write prog music - we don't think like that. We just write. Well... we write in the Evergrey vein, you know?

So do all of you write together, or is it just mostly Tom?
Well, it's been different from every album. I've only done the last album, I'm new for this one. But this album, Tom had a lot of stuff, and Henrik had a lot of stuff - I was new in the band, so I didn't have that much. So we came together and we tried our ideas and... So this record, it's mostly Henrik's written stuff. So we were starting to plan for the next record, and everyone in the band has ideas... and then we're gonna gather up and introduce the ideas to each other and we'll see what happens. We take the songs that we think are the best - and if Tom wrote it, it doesn't matter.

So how was it recording with Andy LaRocque?
It was awesome, it was great! I think the albums before, the last one - he was more involved in the producing part. This last album, he was more like... just technician, just because it was his studio so he knew how things worked.
So does he ever have any input into any of the songwriting?
No... no, no, not in the songwriting, no.

What do you guys do when you're not on tour?
When we're not touring... well... [laughs]
Like... do you have day jobs to go back to, or is it just vacation?
Well, a few of us do, you know... it really depends on how the situation in the band is going. I mean, if there's nothing going on with the band after we're waiting for a new release, some people do all kinds of stuff, some work, you know... Obviously, right now we're not working cos it's all the time...

I noticed the sound on Recreation Day compared to In Search of Truth - it seems more aggressive, but also more melodic at the same time...
Yeah, when we were done with it, that's exactly what we thought as well. But it wasn't really a planned thing, it just turned out that way. I don't know why but... [laughs]
[ some guy walked in, maybe a roadie, and they start speaking in Swedish for a few seconds]
Sorry about that!
So what's the story behind 'Fastbeer'??
Well... I'm not the one to ask about that, cos I wasn't in the band when that happened, it's just something I heard about, I dunno... no comments!! [laughs]
[sidenote: later inside the venue, Tom showed us exactly how he earned the nickname Fastbeer. Literally.] ;)

to almost anything...
What kinda non-metal stuff do you listen to?
Non-metal.... Well, right now I really like Radiohead... [thinking] what else? I'm thinking about the last albums I've worked on...

Do you get any influences from other keyboard players? like Spiritual Beggars, stuff like that...
Uhh yeah kinda... Well I, yeah when I hear it but... I haven't been that much into that type of music until now, you know? [laughs] Just because now I hear it so much! But I mean... like the guy - like James Johanson (??), that's the guy I grew up with, he's really awesome..

What do you think about the whole downloading versus buying music issue?
Hmm, I think... what I've heard, I mean I don't have any actual figures... what I've heard, the thing about downloading music has more..increased the sale of albums because people explore more music. Otherwise you just hear what you get through commercial radio - and I mean, if someone downloaded a few Evergrey songs, and they think it's awesome, I'm SURE they're gonna buy the album! And if they don't, if they don't think it's worth it - well..then they don't like it. It's just my point of view.
But then again you also have a lot of artists saying their record sales have dropped because of that.
Yeah but I don't think it's because of that. I think it's like...the guy who was in here [the guy he was to earlier in Swedish] He's a roadie for us, he's in a band called Clawfinger - they just released another album and it's selling very poor in Sweden. They don't advertise it though and if you don't advertise it, nobody's gonna find out that they've released an album. ...So I don't think that that's the thing to blame. But I don't know, I'm completely lost with computers [laughs] so I never download anything myself because I don't have the patience!

Okay last question! It's from a discussion we had with a friend of our's... Have you ever watched The Wizard of Oz?
The Wizard... of Oz? No, I don't think so.
okay, what about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
No...
Okay, well my question was gonna be... Who do you think would win in a fight, the Oompaloompas or the Flying Monkeys?
Is this some kinda Canadian uhhh... [laughs]
No no, it's not Canadian!
The Oompaloompas are these little guys, and they sing and dance at the same time - all of them, at the exact same time - thhey do this hypnotising dance-
Okay, I think they would win then...
No what about the flying monkeys?!
No no, the Oompaloompas would win, I'd go for them. [laughs]
Okay then, that wraps it up, thanks for the interview Rikard!!