In many ways, In Flames' release of 'The Tokyo Showdown'
(the band's first live album recorded and released in 2001) signalled
the end of an era. Up until that point, the Swedish melodic death act
(comprising of vocalist Anders Fridén, guitarists Jesper Strömblad
and Björn Gelotte, bassist Peter Iwers and drummer Daniel Svensson)
had been content to help maintain the Gothenburg sound as a force to
be reckoned with, but times were soon about to change.
Released in 2002, In Flames' sixth studio release 'Reroute
To Remain' saw the band both hailed for their innovation and willing
to move beyond the safe confides of their past achievements, but it
also saw a select minority who were unimpressed with the overall mainstream
approach of the material, the reduced number of solos and Fridén's
greater use of clean vocals (strangely enough, they were the very same
criticisms thrown at 'Clayman' upon its release back in 2000 as well).
Past popular opinion seemed to mirror the bands next release
'Soundtrack To Your Escape' in 2004 as well, but little of the negative
press regarding the album hindered the bands move forward in any way
as they continued to rise in prominence both in Europe and abroad, particularly
in the US, where the band shared the main stage on 2005's Ozzfest tour.
In the interim, In Flames released their first DVD 'Used And Abused
- In Live We Trust' (released mid way through 2005), which tided fans
over while the band plotted out their next move.
That next step was finally revealed with the release of
their eighth album 'Come Clarity' (which was mistakenly titled 'Crawl
Through Knives' before getting an official name upon completion), which
unlike their last two releases has been viewed as a welcome return to
form for the Swedes, satisfying both old and new fans (those who like
the melodic stance of the new In Flames, along with the old school who
favoured the heaviness of past releases) more than ever.
With their most successful headlining tour (alongside
Trivium, DevilDriver and Zao) drawing to a close, I managed to secure
a quick moment of Björn Gelotte's time while in Charlotte (North
Carolina) to chat about distribution deals, touring and the general
opinion that In Flames have made a triumphant return to form with 'Come
Clarity'.
"We're really happy with the way 'Come Clarity' came
out, but this whole thing about us making a comeback is just an opinion.
When we write music, it's basically always been in the same way since
1996's 'The Jester Race'. We write the music in the same way - it's
only the producer or the focus of the melodies that have changed. What
we wanted to do with this album is make the songs a little faster, and
put a bit more energy into the songs with a little more of the twin
guitar leads. It's a small step back in that direction, but musically
it's the same thing that we've always done. For us, there's no change
apart from wanting to produce more of the album ourselves."
While Gelotte and the rest of In Flames may think that
it's business as usual, public opinion in regards to the band with 'Come
Clarity' clearly seems to be on the upswing, even if they're not entirely
aware of the fact.
"We've been on tour since the album was released,
so we haven't really noticed what the press has reported. Of course,
the labels have given us updates, but because you're never in the same
city for more than one night, it's hard to concentrate on all the feedback.
But overall, all the e-mails and the talks with our record labels have
been very, very positive so far. Everybody seems to be really excited,
and it feels like a good time to be a part of In Flames at the moment.
We're currently on the road, having an awesome tour with plenty of good
friends, and the shows have almost been sold out at every show. Along
with that, we have just released 'Come Clarity'. So it's a good time
to be in the band."
Apart from critical appraisal, 'Come Clarity has also
seen a rise in sales figures for the band above and beyond the last
couple of releases. But as Gelotte points out, it's not entirely down
to the music, but more a matter of distribution.
"I have just been given some figures, and they're
the ones that are sort of official. I must admit that it looks good.
People seem to be showing their interest in the band, and that's great.
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that all of a sudden we have
the kind of distribution that we wanted for such a long time. That's
one of the main problems we've had in the past, and that's why we changed
from Nuclear Blast Records in the US to Ferret Music. It was purely
a matter of wanting to get the album out there to the fans. It's something
that didn't work properly when we were dealing with Nuclear Blast Records
here in the US. As soon as we had recorded 'Soundtrack To Your Escape',
we knew that we were open to options, and we decided right away that
we didn't want to go back to Nuclear Blast Records for the US market.
We got a whole bunch of different labels, ranging all the way from the
smallest up to the majors because everybody showed a lot of interest.
But in the end, it wasn't about the pay cheque, it was about the best
ideas, priority, how well they could get the album out there and work
the album in the best way possible. Nuclear Blast Records is a great
label, but it's a European label run by Europeans. They really don't
know how the US market works in the same way that Americans do. That
was another thing that we were thinking about when we wanted to make
the change. We wanted to have a proper American label that knew how
to work the market. I think it's very important to make sure that you
chose the right label to market your albums in different territories.
If you want to have the opportunity to play the same kind of shows that
you do in Europe here in the US, and have your songs played on the radio
and TV, then you have to have the same kind of distribution of your
albums as you do in Europe. In the end, in order to prosper and expand,
it's very important to get the same exposure in both areas. I think
music today is such a consumer product. It's very fast. You have to
be in everybody's face all the time and make sure they understand and
remember you! (Laughs) That's why touring is very important, as you
mentioned before, but you also to have all the tools necessary in order
to have your music in every store. It's important that you look at those
details, rather than looking for the money that you can get out of a
change like this in the long run."
As involved as the label switch sounds, the transition
from Nuclear Blast Records to Ferret Music in the US was quick, as much
as it was stress free.
"The decision was entirely up to us, and we decided
what we wanted to do pretty much straight away. The contract with Nuclear
Blast Records in the US was already completed with the release of 'Soundtrack
To Your Escape', so we were free agents. That's when the bidding started,
and I can assure you that Nuclear Blast Records was in there as well.
But what they could do distribution wise wasn't quite what we were looking
for, so Ferret Music was the winner so to speak in the long run. It's
been working out really good as everybody can see by sales, promotion
and tour wise so far. Everything has been smashing. I think we made
the right choice."
While the addition of further distribution has certainly
helped fuel In Flames' sales to a certain extent, the simple fact that
'Come Clarity' progresses beyond what the band had to offer in the past
also plays a major part. One such example is the addition of Swedish
singer/songwriter Lisa Miskovsky on 'Dead End'.
"Having a female vocalist isn't something that we
had never done before - it's just that we haven't done it for quite
a few albums. We actually featured female vocals on the very first In
Flames album (1994's 'Lunar Strain'), as well as on 1997's 'Whoracle'.
This time around however, we just wanted to do it differently. We didn't
want to write a song for the female vocals. We wanted to try out female
vocals within a traditional In Flames song structure, which meant that
it was more up-tempo and double bass heavy. In other words, it's a fairly
fast song. I think it worked out really good. Miskovsky has a beautiful
voice, and the mix really holds together well with the aggressive instrumentation
and Fridén's vocals, especially given that none of us were aware
that she was into metal at all. From what I've heard, she grew up liking
hardcore, and she was very much into that scene at the time she was
growing up. The music she's doing now doesn't really reflect that, but
when we thought about that, we all agreed that it sounded fairly natural.
When we approached her, she was really excited about the metal scene
in general, plus she also knew about In Flames. Whatever we found out
about her was just through us asking her. We met here at a festival
in Northern Sweden initially, and we just asked her if she wanted to
do something and try it out. She said that she would love to do it,
and next time we met her while we were recording 'Come Clarity', we
asked her if she was ready to go ahead with it. Fridén had already
written the lyrics for her, she came into the studio, we jammed her
parts in and this is the way it turned out. It's very cool."
Although it may come across as pre-planned, Gelotte is
adamant that it was all a spur of the moment decision.
"From our point of view, the addition of female vocals
wasn't planned in any way. It certainly wasn't something that I wrote
the music for. When Fridén suggested that we should have female
vocals on this part and that part, it's just something that happened.
Maybe Fridén had some idea that he wanted to do that for the
sake of the lyrics in the song, but for me, there was no initial plan
to use female vocals specifically for the song from the start."
Another interesting revisit to the past is the acoustic
instrumental bridge in 'Our Infinite Struggle' and the somewhat experimental
closing number 'Your Bedtime Story Is Scaring Everyone'.
"The acoustics in 'Our Infinite Struggle' is similar
to stuff that we've done in the past. It's something that kind of makes
the song all the more interesting. You get a lot of dynamics in doing
things like that, but dynamics is something that we really like and
something that we've learned is very important for our songs. As for
'Your Bedtime Story Is Scaring Everyone', at first, that wasn't actually
meant to be a song. It was actually mean to be, as you said, an atmospheric
piece that just ended the album as an outro piece. It was actually Strömblad
that wrote the parts on that one, and he just showed me what his thoughts
were on it, and we put it together in the studio. I think that it turned
out pretty cool. We left most of the instrumentation open to keyboardist
Örjan Örnkloo. So the start of the song was just him fooling
around with different ideas. Fridén then put his vocals on it.
I think it turned out really cool. It's fun to have on there. It's a
very different way of ending the album, and I think it sums the album
up pretty much. We start off the album with one of the fastest songs
that we have ever written ('Take This Life'), and then it goes all the
way through the whole spectrum of our sound and then the album is eased
out with this very atmospheric piece."
Apart from the standard version of the album, In Flames'
'Come Clarity' is also released in limited edition form with a bonus
DVD. But unlike what most have assumed, it's not a live release, but
more a promotional tool of sorts.
"Well it's not a live performance by any means. When
we had the first listening sessions for 'Come Clarity' for family, friends
and a few members of the press, we wanted to do things slightly different
from what usually happens, which is to sit two speakers in front of
everybody and say, 'Here you go!' and play the album from start to finish.
We wanted to present the album in a more visual sense, so we talked
director Patric Ullaeus (who has worked on all In Flames' promotional
video clips in the past, as well as on their 'Used And Abused - In Live
We Trust' DVD), and asked if he could bring his cameras into the studio
and edit something together for us that was something a little more
visual than two speakers. So he ended up doing a whole video for the
whole album. All it involved was a bunch of cameras filming us playing
along to the whole album. It was just something different in a way of
presenting the album. When Nuclear Blast Records saw the finished product,
they thought it was pretty cool, and for whatever reason, they decided
to include it on the first pressing of the album. We thought that was
a fun idea, but only as long people didn't perceive it as a live concert,
because it's not. It was essentially a promotional tool, rather than
something that was specifically filmed for the album's release."
Another very visual aspect of the band that is very different
on 'Come Clarity' is the cover artwork, provided by none other than
renowned artist Derek Hess.
"We wanted to have something different this time
around. We do a couple of albums with one artist, and then we go out
and find something new. We do the same thing with producers as well.
We don't want to do the same thing too many times in a row. This time
around, we wanted something that we had never ever tried before, and
something that was a little more art based I guess. We ask a whole host
of artists for ideas, and basically Hess' ideas were the best ones.
He worked together with Fridén on the concepts, and this is how
it turned out. I think it was more Fridén who came up with the
actual concepts, because he knew what he wanted to present and how he
visualised it, and the pair of them worked on those ideas together.
Of course, any artist works best when you give them free reign, and
Hess probably got some free reign amongst Fridén's guidelines,
but there's always a certain amount of direction! (Laughs) I think the
whole thing has turned out really cool. I think it's very clean. As
far as I understand the lyrics, I think Hess has a good grasp of what
the lyrics are about and what Fridén wanted to present. I think
that's really cool. There's a lot of work behind something like this,
and when all the pieces come together such as artwork, production and
the song writing, and it turns out this good, it's a good feeling."
As mentioned at the start of the interview, In Flames
at the time were just about to complete their US tour with Trivium,
DevilDriver and Zao, and according to Gelotte has been a huge success.
"We currently have three more shows to go, then we
go home for like ten days before kicking off a European tour that's
expected to run for around seven weeks. This current tour has been one
of the best tours we've ever done here in the US as headliners. I don't
know exactly how many shows were sold out, but I think it was almost
all of them. And the ones that weren't sold out were so close to being
so that it didn't really matter. We've been very lucky on this tour.
It's a lot of hard work, but it's been excellent timing because 'Come
Clarity' has just come out too. It's been a great tour with great guys.
We knew DevilDriver from before, because we took them out on tour through
Europe, and they are extremely cool guys. Trivium are an up and coming
younger band that are very eager and very technical players instrumentally,
and are fun guys to hang out with. Zao is just very laid back. They're
cool guys, but they mainly stick to themselves for most of the time.
They do put on a kick arse show when they play live though, so it's
been a good tour."
In support of their upcoming tour, In Flames will be taking
out Brazilian legends Sepultura, who have recently released their new
album 'Dante XXI'.
"That should be really cool. I'm really looking forward
to that tour because I'm a huge fan of Sepultura. It's going to be great.
After that, we have plans of doing another tour here in the US, before
heading back to the European festival circuit, but we'll have to see
what happens with that as it's simply in the planning stages at the
moment. After doing the European festivals, we'll be back here to do
the 'Sounds Of The Underground' festival tour with As I Lay Dying, Trivium,
Cannibal Corpse, Gwar, Terror, The Black Dahlia Murder, Behemoth, The
Chariot and Through The Eyes Of The Dead. It's sort of like an alternative
to the Ozzfest, except all the bands are on the same stage. It sounds
like it's going to be pretty cool. I think that runs through until July,
so that's quite long. We'll see what happens after that. But we do hope
to come down to Australia again sometime soon. We can't believe it's
been two years since we were last down there! It's something that we
would definitely love to do again as it was one of the best experiences
that we had had in a very long time. Everybody was really friendly,
and we had no clue that there were so many metal heads down there. The
shows went really well, and I hope that you guys will have us down there
soon enough, and definitely off the back of this album, I don't know
when it will happen. It might be this year, or even next, but we will
be back. I promise you that!"
I would like to thank Björn Gelotte for his generous
time, and Riot! Distributors for making the interview possible.
For more information on In Flames, check out - http://www.inflames.com
© Justin Donnelly - justindonnelly@ozemail.com.au
