What are your feelings about Clayman now that it is finished? 
Obviously, it is my favorite one as it is the latest one.  (laughs)  But I do feel it is the strongest one, as this is the first time we've had the same line-up for two albums and I think that is very important.  Now we are more of a family than a project.

Did you handle the recording or the writing any differently?
Yeah, definitely.  The writing was different.  We used to just write stuff, me and Jesper, and tell everybody what to do.  This time, we got a lot of energy from touring, met a lot of good people, met a lot of good bands.  Directly after we came home form the US tour, we started to pre-record stuff in Abyss studio and Studio Fredman.  We had a lot of ideas and put it down on tape, then everybody got to work with it.  It was more of a teamwork thing and we've never worked like that before, so that's why I think it feels more solid.

To my ears, the songs on the new album seem to have a lot more individual character than those on the Colony or Whoracle.  Did you guys make an extra effort in that department or do you attribute that to the group effort?
I think it is both, actually.  A lot of things happened since the last album.  We did these tours with Children of Bodom, Arch Enemy and Dark Tranquillity, and these are good friends of ours, all of these.  They are great musicians and we learned a lot of things from them, all of us.  Also, the US tour, we met a lot of people that had never heard this kind of music.  This all taught us to make the songs more dynamic and diverse and just to make them work live.  The fact that everyone got to say something about the music this time obviously had something to do with it, too.

How was the US tour?
It was my first, so I had nothing to compare it to.  For me, it was excellent because we didn't have any expectations.  Everybody told us, 'Oh, you're not going to get that, you're not going to get any beer, no food, no people at the venue…,' but it was absolutely great.  It was even better than a European tour sometimes.  We had a great crew working with us and all the promoters were really cool.  I had heard they were supposed to be assholes, but they were cool.

That's funny because so many bands I talk to that come over for a US tour have it end up being a disaster.
Yeah, that sucks, but you've got to make the best of everything.  We've been doing from really, really low budget tours, to pretty big stuff.  So we're used to doing shit (laughs) and this was a good surprise.

The vocals seem a little more diverse on this album than before.  Was this a conscious move, to expand the vocal range a bit or not?
As I said, we toured so much and everybody got better at their instrument.  Obviously Anders' vocals is his instrument and when you get better at an instrument, you want to try some new stuff out, you want to do something else, you want to excel, and that's what he did.  All the songs sounded very different in the beginning and then we let him try different stuff.  We gave him a lot of input and he just put his guts out there.  I think it makes the music much more dynamic, the way he sings now.

Do you listen to a lot of stuff outside of metal for your personal enjoyment? 
Yes, definitely, we all do.  It's not often that I listen to pure metal.  I mean, I listen to Slipknot and Arch Enemy, but I listen to all kinds of music.  We're not afraid to say we listen to different stuff.  (laughs)  We're not die-hard death metal fans only, because I think then In Flames would sound a lot different.  Anders is very much into Tea Party and Handsome..  I listen to everything from Sabbath to Weezer, classical music… everything.  The only thing I can't stand is opera.  I think it is too annoying when they scream all the time.  But everyone is very diverse.  Peter listens to pop music and some of the Euro techno, because there are so many great melodies in that.

The cover you did of "Everything Counts" was brilliant.  What inspired that?
We decided we wanted to do a cover, something very different, but we didn't know what.  Anders is a huge Depeche Mode fan so he gave us a lot of different songs and we listened to them and were like, 'No…,' but then we found this song "Everything Counts."  It didn't have anything to do with guitars, not even melodies - all the melodies are in the vocals.  So we tried to use that and make it into an In Flames song instead and I think it turned out really good.  We had a lot of things to work with, we had to build the whole song back up from the beginning, so it was very interesting.

Have you been surprised by the level of success you've achieved?
Yeah, we're surprised by everything happening at once, but we've been here for such a long time.  We've done everything from shit tours to bigger stuff.  Since we've been there on the lower levels, so we're pretty down to earth.  It's nice that things are happening, but if they weren't, it wouldn't matter.  The reason we do this is not to be big and conquer the world or anything.  We do this because this is the music that we want to hear and also the music that we want to play and we're going to continue playing it even if we don't sell any records.  The important thing for us is that everyone is comfortable with what they are doing, everybody's happy with it.  If people enjoy it, excellent, but that's not the main thing.

That is such a cool attitude and it seems like a lot more bands are taking that attitude these days, compared to the 80s when it seemed to be more important for bands to become 'rock stars' or whatever.
I don't know what impression you got of us, but we don't have an image or an attitude or anything.  We just enjoy the music and I guess you can see that when we play live.  We're only happy to do this and come to all these countries to play.

What is your opinion on the whole Napster controversy and the future of the music industry?
For a band our size and a bit bigger and all the smaller bands, I think it is a really good medium to get new listeners and for people to get to know them.  I'm an Internet addict myself.  The only thing I can say that for Metallica, who is suing Napster because they are losing a lot of money - if that is the only important thing for them, then okay.  It's their choice.  But I think it is important for all the bands out there, all the demo bands.  I've heard dozens of great demo bands who only have songs available on mp3.com.  The only drawback I can see is it took like three days from when we released the promos til it was all over the Internet.  That's the only thing that I think sucks, but you have to take the good things with the bad.

What do you see as the future, in terms of the Internet and how music is transferred from the bands to the fans?
I think the Internet is going to be used more than it is right now, but I also think the labels are bound to come up with something smart.  The way it is going right now, it's not very good for the labels.  They will find something, but there are always going to be these hackers who will find solutions for everything.  That's the challenge.  Bring everything forward into the future - I like that.

Can you talk to me about some of the lyrics on the new album?
I'll try… (laughs)  The thing is, the way Anders writes the lyrics, he never tells anyone what he thinks.  He just sort of paints a picture of his experiences and stuff.  Then he gives you this picture and you have to interpret it yourself.  I guess the main concept is, from the moment you are born, people start telling you what you can and can't do and start putting up guidelines in society, laws and rules for everything.  It is very hard to find yourself in all of this.  You get shaped all the time by society, by the people and situations around you.  This is about how important it is to have your own identity and what happens if you don't.  It's easy to be shaped without knowing it.

Are any of your albums available on vinyl?  Seems like a lot of them would benefit in the art department...
I think that all of them are.  I know they did something with Lunar Strain…  The Jester Race and Whoracle are picture LPs.  Same with Colony and I think they are going to do Clayman as well.  I think that's cool, even though I don't have my own vinyl player.  It's cool to have it on the wall.  There are great layouts, great drawings and everything.  Most of us are big fans of this old format.  I love everything about it except the sound (laughs).  Pretty lo-fi.  That's also why we have the LP sound at the beginning and end of the album.  It just puts the listener in the right vibe.

Can you tell me about the artwork on the new album?
Yeah, we went with a different guy this time and I can't remember his name.  We wanted to do something different, as everyone is using Andreas Marshall and we wanted to go our own way and not do what everybody else is doing.  We had a lot of ideas and we wanted to really make this one look like an In Flames album.  We have the jester in the background, we have all the fire - which is very important (laughs).  Also, we got the logo pretty big and then you've got the Clayman in the middle.  I think it catches the eye pretty quick.

What do you think of the new Iron Maiden record?
Seriously?  I think it is great.  I didn't like Maiden when Blaze was singing.  I love Maiden, we all grew up with Maiden.  But this album with Bruce sounds like it could have been recorded in '89 or something.  Also, I already found two songs that are going to be classics already - "The Wicker Man" and "Blood Brothers."  I really enjoy it.  Of course, they didn't have much time and they had a lot of pressure, so the next album will probably be even better.  We saw them in Essen in Germany while we were on tour.  We had one day off and we rushed to Essen to see them (laughs).  They had all this energy when they played and they didn't have it when Bruce wasn't there.  They looked really good, really happy.