DARKANE

Daemon in heaven

When it comes to the most creative and courageous bands on the contemporary metal scene, we mustn't lose sight of DARKANE. Since 1998 they have been consistently working on their own modern thrash metal formula. Thanx to such great albums as "Expanding Senses" or "Layers Of Lies" they achieved a status of the leading thrash metal band from Sweden. It speaks for itself. At the end of 2008 the band released the fifth full length album entitled "Demonic Art". Just before Christmass time I got a chance to talk about that effort and some other things related to DARKANE to band's axeman Christofer Malmström. Have fun!

-Your fifth full length album entitled „Demonic Art” was released in October 2008. What has the feedback for this album been so far? Are you satisfied?
We have recieved mostly very good critics. I think people needs to get into it for a while before really starting to like it. It’s always been like that with DARKANE. The first time you hear it you might not understand it, but if you start to like it later on it will last for a long time.

-I must say your new album is a piece of shit... OK, just kidding man, it turned out very good. By the way, do you care what people say about your music, no matter if they are positive or negative? You might agree that bad reviews are a good thing. Once someone said that loving kindness is for wimps...
When a new album is released I think it’s very important what it says in the first review we read about it. The first review I read about our (very important) second album Insanity was not very good, and that gave me very bad feelings. Nowadays I think that as long as you get more positive than negative reviews you don’t care about the bad ones, and fortunately so far we have gotten a majority of good reviews of all our albums.

-You have already had a chance to test some of your new songs in live situations. Are they doing well in your opinion? Which songs from your new album are supposed to be your new live killers?
I think that Impetious constant chaos, Execution 44 and Leaving Existence works very well live and I enjoy playing them a lot.

-„Demonic Art” is the first album recorded for your new record label Massacre Records. How did you end up your cooperation with DARKANE's former publisher Nuclear Blast? Frankly speaking, it was a shock for me since I though that your position in Marcus Staiger's record label is pretty strong. OK, Massacre is also a very cool label to work with but...you know what I mean?
Actually we haven’t left Nuclear Blast. They have licensed the album to Massacre here in Europe while we’re still on Nuclear Blast in North America. Blast had so many priority releases this fall that they felt they couldn’t focus enough on DARKANE, so they licensed us to Massacre who will give us a higher priority, and for this we are very happy. So far it feels very good.

-Nuclear Blast will release your new album in the States but Europe still remains the main target for the band. So, how do you see your future cooperation with Massacre Records? Are you going to become their top priority and best selling band, or maybe you don't take things so seriously anymore and wanna play for fun, just to entertain people and attract chicks?
Yes, of course we’re only in it for the chicks! That’s why we started to play death metal in the beginning. No, but of course our hopes is to sell as much as possible. We are having a lot of fun while playing in this band and have put a LOT of time into it, so if we could get something back selling wise it would be great. We can’t of course plan to be Massacres best selling band, but it wouldn’t hurt. =) Then at the same time, DARKANE will stick to our style. If we wanted to sell more we should maybe have started to go softer, like many bands do these days, but it’s more important for us to continue the path that we have started and play the style we love the most, technical melodic modern thrash metal with death metal influences.

-The band has been around since 10 years or so... Are you proud of what you’ve already accomplished with DARKANE? What has been your biggest achievement to date?
I am very proud of what we’ve done. After all we’ve gained quite a lot of success and have got to tour the world. Playing in all of Europe, the states and Japan is not something that happens to everybody, and we feel very fortunate to have done that.

-It's time to talk about your new effort. As you said someday, on „Demonic Art” the band „has developed in a way that hopefully will give you new fans as well, not meaning that you've turned softer or more mainstream, just better”. Do you believe this new album will open doors that may not have been opened to you before?
I hope that with every album, and I believe with every album we expand our fan base. Of course we want new doors to open up for us all the time, but it’s not that I can say before that I think they will. I am a realistic man and doesn’t take anything for granted. The US tour we’re doing in february and march will certainly give us some good exposure in the states at least.

-Listening to „Demonic Art” I would say this album is a step forward but in a slightly new direction. I get the impression that your previous records sounded more traditional while now you are moving towards something which can be described as modern thrash metal. Can you agree with that opinion?
Yes, but at the same time I’ve heard magazines describe us as modern thrash metal since way back, and I also personally think that is the proper way to describe our style, but not only on the latest album.

-By the way, do you keep an eye on these experimental metal bands trying to break boundaries of what is commonly described as "traditional, old- school metal"? Is it a good time for metal music to explore some as yet unconquered territories?
Yes, isn’t it always a good time for metal music? =) Unfortunately I don’t follow the scene that much anymore. It was a very long time since I heard a new band that I really liked. I don’t know why it’s that way, and it’s quite boring for me that I feel that way. But I still love the old classics that got me into metal many years ago.

-When you say that you want to reach as many new fans as possible, do you feel your art carries out a message of any kind? Is there something DARKANE stands for, in general?
No, we’re just playing exactly the style that we love playing and if people likes it we’re even happier.

-Although your new album is guitar- oriented, in some of the songs can be heard some orchestral ornaments and keyboard layers. It's quite unusual to use so many synthetic elements in so organic, guitar- driven style as thrash metal definitely is. Is it your way to be unique and keep your music fresh?
Well, yes. You could say so. Compared to for example SOILWORK where the keyboards have a more central part in the music we prefere to just add some chords in the backgrounds on a chorus or such to make it sound bigger. The guitars and drums are still the central part in our music though.

-For many metalheads DARKANE's name has always been a synonym of progression in metal. I'm wondering, where do you look for some new ideas, and where do you find energy to experiment, to push the boundaries of music you play? When almost everything in metal music has already been said, it must quite difficult to come up with new things over and over again, right?
Sometimes it’s hard to come up with new stuff, but at other times we feel very inspired, as it probably is for all bands. We don’t really push ourselves to come up with ideas that hasn’t been done before. I would say becuase of the different influences we have we will always sound like DARKANE when writing songs. We can be inspired by almost anything. I can hear a modern choir work or a fusion song, or even a pop songs on the radio that I would like to create something out of and make into a DARKANE riff. This might be the reason some people consider DARKANE synonym with progression. I think also that Peters approach to music and drumming gives us a little unique touch.

-Could you finally tell me some words about writing process for „Demonic Art”? How did you come up with all those additional keys layers?
After releasing our previous album Layers of Lies it took a while (like a year or so) to start writing again. Then we had a very intense period of writing. We gathered ideas individually and sometimes Peter and I got together to put together songs, or we just put them together by ourselves. Klas also wrote 4 songs by his own. About the key layers, they are not very advanced. Mostly we just follow the chords that are played by the guitars and play it on keyboards as well.

-By the way, you still work as five- piece. Aren't you going to employ a permanent keyboard player and continue playing with keyboards in the future?
No, definately not. The keyboard part is way too small in DARKANE. We have them on backing tracks live, and that is fine with us.

-Some of the metal fans are known by a total lack of tolerance to keyboards, synthesizers and so on. Do you think DARKANE would be able to fight against such prejudices?
Like I said, it’s such a small part of our sound, but if people have a problem with it that’s up to them. Still, we use a lot of real instruments like strings, french horn, tuba, flute and percussions on the intro (Variations of an eye crush) and the intro to Execution 44, so that is not played on keyboards.

-”Demonic Art” is the first DARKANE's album recorded with a new vocalist Jens Broman. I know him from THE DEFACED and must say he's a great vocalist. How did you get in touch with him and what was a reason for parting with your former vocalist Andreas Sydow?
I’m happy you like him. We are very proud of having him in DARKANE. Our other guitarist Klas plays in THE DEFACED, so we had heard him sing in that band band. We all knew him well before since he is from our hometown, and we knew what he was capable of doing so there was really no hesitation from our side, and not from Jens side either when he accepted to take the role as front man of DARKANE.
Andreas worked alot besides being in DARKANE. When he realized that he couldn’t put as much effort into the band as the rest of the members he decided to step aside so we could find a vocalist that could put more time into the band. Andreas is a good friend, and this was not fun of course, but at the same we saw possibilities to bring in a new and hungry vocalist that could take us up another step.