[Interview conducted July 2004]

Pure heavy metal was a scarce commodity for a while there, with everything from thrash to death to industrial to grindcore taking the spotlight.  But as the 90s wound down, more and more bands of the 'true metal' persuasion began to surface, particularly after HammerFall made a splash with Glory to the Brave.  In 2000, Fredrik Nordström, long known as one of the top metal producers, enlisted four other gentlemen and formed his dream band, a band that would take the classic metal sound of the 80s and bring it into the new millennium.  With three albums under their belts in just three years, these warriors have proven themselves worthy of the metal legions the world over, particularly with the release of the deadly The Book of Heavy Metal this year.  Fredrik gave me a buzz recently to explain more about his exceptional band…

The Book of HM is easily the heaviest Dream Evil album so far - did you set out to really outdo yourselves on this one?
I think so, maybe. (laughs)  It was not planned, actually, but it just turned out to be that way.  We did forty songs for this album and once we came up with this album title, we tried to find songs that would fit for the name, The Book of Heavy Metal.  But there also soft songs in there, like "Only For the Night" and "Chosen Twice."

From what I've been reading, this album has been charting really well all over.  Were you surprised at how well it has been received so quickly?
I don't know… I'm just happy that people like the stuff. (laughs)  What can I say?

The album artwork for this one is a bit more subdued and you changed the band logo.  Did you purposely make this one look differently from the other albums?
I think so because I'm not so very, very happy with the cover, but it's like me and Snowy, we think that like Judas Priest            with British Steel or Balls to the Wall of Accept - those are good covers.  Instead of this...  it's like you can see it so well, 'Okay, it's power metal, and there's a painted dragon on it and…' - no.  We wanted something simple and this was as simple as we were thinking of going.  When they asked me what I wanted on the cover, I answered them, 'A dead fish, nothing more,' to try to explain to them that they don't have to make the cover so fucking complicated.  So that's why it is like it is.  I don't know who did it or anything. (laughs)  When we did the first album, it was in the beginning of 2000 when we recorded it and the power metal scene was not so big, but then it took so long before it was released, there was a flood of power metal.  And we are more of an 80s style when it comes to age and musical influences.

Are the songs written by the band collectively or individually?
Oh, it's very different.  The title track was, from the beginning, written by me and Snowy, but then he said, 'I don't think it is a strong enough song,' so he did a new one all by himself.  Sometimes me and Snowy do stuff, sometimes me and Niklas, sometimes Niklas and Peter, and me and Gus have done stuff.  Mainly the first album was done by me and Gus, so you never know.  Sometimes it might be one guy writing a song and sometimes it's everyone in the band.  The third song on this album, "The Sledge," a guy I worked with in the studio said to me, 'Hey Fredrick, what do you think of this:  I'm hit by the sledge of rock.'  Fuck, that's killer!  So on the way home from the studio, I was thinking up a chorus idea for 'I'm hit by the sledge of rock.'  I called up Snowy but he wasn't home, so I sang my idea of the chorus into his answering machine.  Then at 8 o'clock in the morning when we met at the studio, I said, 'Hey, we have to do something about [the song]' so then we did the song in the studio.  We recorded the drums and the whole song was done by 11 o'clock.  Sometimes I might have an idea for a guitar riff and then Niklas puts in the verse and sings the melody on top of that and we do it like that.  So there are all kinds of combinations.

From reading your bio, I get the impression the band didn't know each other all the well when you first started out.  Was there any concern about how you guys would get along on tour?
We had a lot of fun when we went to our first gig and our social lives have been working very well, actually.  Snowy, the first time we met was when we took the photos for the first album, which was two months after it was recorded. (laughs)  Snowy was just a session drummer, but he was like, 'You're nice guys, grown up with a lot of humor, so maybe I can join the band.'  And who can resist the best drummer in the world?  (laughs)

Niklas has a very powerful metal voice that doesn't sound like the typical power metal singer at all.  How did you find him?
I found him when I recorded the first HammerFall album.  Peter, our bass player, was a good friend with Joacim, the singer in HammerFall, so he called up Peter to come and do the backing vocals.  He said, 'Yeah and maybe I should bring the singer from our cover band, because he has a very good voice.'  And he had a fucking good voice, so I took his telephone number and so when me and Gus met each other and started to write songs, I called up Niklas and asked if he wanted to come down and sing on our demo.  He liked the stuff very much, so he asked if he could be in the band, and we were like, yeah, of course, you have the perfect voice for this.  And then he suggested Peter and called him up and we started to write songs together and record the album, without a record contract, nothing.  That's why it took so long before it was released; there was an extremely long negotiation with Century Media.

Along with that diversity is your ability to make your ballads just as powerful as the heavy songs.  "Unbreakable Chain" is I think your best one yet and reminds me a bit of the Scorpions, who are one of the very few bands that I think really excel at ballads.
Yeah and me, Snowy and Gus all like Scorpions very much.  I think that was mainly Gus' song and he was like, 'I have this Scorpions song, this ballad,' and he played it for us and we liked it very much.  He's totally a fan of Scorpions.

What do you think about ballads in metal in general?
It can be nice.  I like metal ballads very much, but you have bad examples, too. (laughs)  It is very hard to write a good ballad.  On the first album, "Losing You," I like very much.  When we played that song in Japan, everyone was crying.  It was an amazing feeling.  One guy who is fifty years old and has a major radio show in Japan, he was standing there crying - it was incredible.

I've always been fascinated by Japan but haven't been able to visit yet.  What were your tours there like?  Were you surprised at all on your first visit?
Absolutely.  It was like going to outer space or something (laughs).  It's very nice, but very different from us.  The fans are so dedicated and organized.  You stop playing a song, they scream like hell and then totally quiet.  If you don't make any sound, it is totally quiet in the venue.  There can be a thousand people and it will be totally quiet.  Then you raise your hand and everyone is 'YAAHH!'  (laughs)

Has it been difficult for you to balance your time between Dream Evil and your studio work?
Absolutely and I have a big family also.  It's hard but normally there is some solution.  You always have to compromise.  I have a guy who works with me in the studio and actually takes care of the studio when we're on tour, so it's not totally empty.

In the future, do you want to keep that balance between time with the band and time in the studio?
I don't want to be on the road four or five months every year, I promise you. (laughs)  I love to do festivals and I really like small tours like in Japan, that's very nice.  But when we went on the HammerFall tours, those were only three weeks, just sitting on the fucking tour bus - that's not especially fun.  It's very fun to meet people, of course.  There is quality time of two or three hours every day when you play and meet fans and stuff.  But then it's like, tour bus, tour bus, tour bus…  I'm not used to that, I'm not used to just sitting and doing nothing.  I know that Snowy actually quit King Diamond because of that.  Everyone agrees in the band, if we're going to tour, it has to be some kind of quality tour, some purpose to it.  We have other lives, so I think the balance is quite good as it is right now.  I think everybody in the band feels like it is perfect with festivals - many people coming that know us and don't know us.  You never know what the future holds.

Are there any festivals in the US that you have played or want to play?
We have never been to the US, that's one of the countries that we really want to go to.  I know the kind of music we are playing is not especially popular over there.  I think we sell like 3,500 or 4,000 in the US and we sell 2,500 in Sweden, so if you compare the difference..  There's nine million in Sweden and how many are you?  250 million?  So that's a big difference.

Similarly, is it difficult with Gus and Snowy Shaw playing in other bands?
Yeah yeah.  Peter and Niklas and I have normal day work - I have a studio and Peter and Niklas sell heating cables or whatever.  But Snowy and Gus only work with the bands, so it's a good balance actually.

Is it difficult at all to produce your own band as opposed to other bands?
Yes and no.  The first album was very hard.  I was nervous and was expecting that people were expecting some kind of death metal album.  But also about the sound and song wise, I was very nervous.  People know me as the guy who produces death metal music and suddenly here's an 80s heavy metal album showing up from me.  Now it is easier, but it is still easy and hard.  It's totally different from producing another band actually because here I’m involved as a songwriter.

So what makes it easier?
It's your own music and you have better control of stuff.

Are there things you've learned from producing so many other bands in terms of songwriting or arranging?
Yeah I think so.  To stay simple and try to focus on the main song, you know verse, pre-chorus, chorus - simple, basic, instead of having long, complicated songs.  I've been recording many bands and been like, 'What is the chorus?  What is the verse?'  Nobody knows, it's just parts fitting together.  If you're 18 years old, you come up with ten riffs, you put them in the same song - you don't get any line in the song, you just get a bunch of riffs.  And intros can be two hours long and that's very boring, also.  So that's what I think I've learned, arrangement.

Now that you've got a few albums under your belt, any thoughts of doing a live album?
Mmm, no.  (laughs)  I don't think so but maybe.  But the sound is quite crappy live. (laughs)

Are you a fan of live albums in general?
There are some classics, like Deep Purple or Tokyo Tapes by Scorpions.  I've done a lot of live albums for bands, but there is a lot of cheating. (laughs)  I think the latest HammerFall DVD, where you can see the band live with good sound and everything, that's nice.

What kind of live show do you put on?
Mainly just us playing, with a backdrop maybe.  We have been speaking about doing stuff, but I don't know right now.  We are not a rich band and so we have to build everything ourselves and that takes a lot of time.  And you have to build it in a way that you can put it together and transport it and get people to understand how to put it together.  You need a lot of people around you to take care of that and the costs of everything running way [high].  Normally, we get a bag of peanuts in payment, so… (laughs)  So far, it doesn't seem realistic to do that even if we wanted to.

Have you had any offers from major labels in Europe?
No.  The only thing was Nuclear Blast, and they're not like a major label but I met their boss on the HammerFall tour and he asked me why we were not signed to his label.  But not anything like EMI or anything.

How far ahead to you look for Dream Evil?
We're going to have a festival in Germany, the Earthquake Festival, and then go to Spain for a festival.  Then we have a discussion for a European tour, but the company who are arranging that tour seem to be some kind of, I don't know, not assholes but hard to work with.  We ask them for some answers and they're like, "You have to wait, you have to wait," but we have other offers that we need to say yes or no to also.  So right now, it's a little dark for this tour, but otherwise maybe something coming up around Christmas.  And we are offered a Japan tour again, a third one, and that should be very nice.  We have a show in London also, but otherwise everything is in the planning stage and out of my hands.  But some kind of European tour [will happen] anyway because the album is just going better and better in Europe.

Any plans for the next album or is that too far away?
No no - next year, new album.  That's what we are planning anyway.  And then we are free from the contract, heheh…  (laughs)  No, I think if we are going to do some more albums, we'll stay with Century Media, we work quite nicely with them.  We know how they work and they know how we are.  We try to sign a contract for two albums or something, that puts the pressure on the record company to work it.  I feel sorry for the bands that sign for 7 or 8 albums - they sign for life.  (laughs)

Is there anything new you want to try out with the next album?
No, I think we're going to stay in the same...  I like how it is; just playing simple heavy metal and I think everybody can agree on that.

Band Line-up:
Niklas Isfeldt – Vocals
Fredrik Nordström – Guitars
Mark U Black – Guitars
Peter Stålfors – Bass
Snowy Shaw - Drums

http://www.dreamevil.se