Interview

New line up, new album. SABATON is now at a turning point in its carrier, their latest album, “Heroes” is about to be release and Joakim Broden will tell us more about it. A little tired but in a very good mood, it sounds like this:

SBM: Hello Joakim! How are you?

Joakim: Oh fine thank you!

You’re welcome! Well we’re here to talk about your brand new album “Heroes” which is kind of special for the band. What are your expectations for this album?

It’s always tough to answer, I mean, I’m a very simple man, so I just hope that this one will lead to more albums and more shows. As you said it’s special because it’s the first album with the new line-up, so it was very difficult for me when I was writing music for it because in a sense some people who know that this is the first one with the new line-up, so if I made these songs, maybe they will not blame the new guys in the band: Chris, Hannes and Thobbe.
So it was a lot of pressure for me, I mean, none of our old band members ever wrote any music, so I didn’t want to let the fans or the new boys out. So it was a bit tough to write, actually when I had the rhythmic we started to record it was the first album recording ever.

And this record comes right after the great “Carolus Rex” which catapulted you as one of the best power metal, if not the best power metal band. How have you lived this rising period?

Actually I don’t really focus on that too much. I’ve never thought about it in any other way than taking care of myself a little bit more; because now I’ve been working hard for it, I’ve really wanted to do this thing for 15 years, me and the entire band working together. And now there is something to lose if you know what I mean, so the only change is that I do more sport, I exercise more and drink less beer! (Laugh)

(Laugh) In a way that’s a good thing!
You also realized a few time ago your first live DVD “Swedish Empire Live” so was it important for you to record it at this moment?

Yes in a sense but time did it itself. To be honest it was a festival, we were the headliner and there were 600.000 persons there! That might never happen again! (Laugh)
So we had a chance to do it and I loved this experiment but for some reasons I got nervous when it gets filmed. I don’t care if there are 5 people or 500.000 in the crowd it doesn’t matter, but when it’s filmed or recorded I get nervous, I don’t know what it is.

It’s quite understandable… I think that’s the same thing for everyone.
Let’s talk a little bit more about “Heroes”. Usually you write songs about great wars, events or heroes. For this record have you chosen a war precisely or some moments in History?

It’s about World War 2. Some of the people we talked about in this album did things in the whole army, like American soldiers, they were in the carrier war. And the focus was the fate and actions of these people during World War 2. Obviously it’s still about war but in a different angle; it’s a little bit more emotional, it talks about small groups and their actions, it does focus really on the big pictures, this is more telling somebody story and not a nation story.

And globally on the first listening we can hear some usual SABATON stuff but some songs like “To Hell and Back” are very different with these folk elements. How have you written this song?

Well you know I like all kind of music and my favorite composer is Ennio Morricone from this spaghetti western, these classic movies. He made “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly” or “For a Few Dollars More “ and all those folk elements are very close to the Swedish tradition, so I had this idea of mixing these elements with heavy metal and the rest of the band said “You’re fucking stupid man! It will sound like shit! Show me you can do it!” (Laugh)

“Yeah sure I will do it because I’m not stupid”

So actually I decided that it has to be nice, so I grabbed my Fender Stratocaster and I played and I played and all in the end was melodies. And actually I spent so much time finding that melody and then writing the rest of the song was very quick, I wanted this vibe and when I got it, the rest of the song was written very quickly because it was fun, I had a really good feeling during the writing.

I really like it, it’s really refreshing, and on it’s totally different from “Resist & Bite” which is more powerful, with a kind of anger. Is there any reason for this?

Hum… yes and no. I mean with tried to tell a different story and obviously war can be a very aggressive and depressing thing and it’s very important for us that music and lyrics match together. If I want a happy story, I want a happy music, if I want to tell a sad story, I need a sad music, and sometimes you need to tell a powerful story so you try to link that together.
So I’m afraid that there was no bigger plan behind that song, I just wanted to tell that story in a way that works out well with both lyrics and music.

As we’re talking about those different moods, we have a sad song “The Ballad of Bull” where you seem to be back on keyboard. Did you enjoy getting back to this position?

Yes, I truly enjoyed playing the keyboards and basically I’ve been doing that even when I was not in the band, and I always experiment things in studio. It feels like my songs are my babies and I write all the music and sometimes I write alone, sometimes I write with somebody but I’m always there experimenting. It could be any instrument and especially keyboards and back then before I was in the band at some parties 15 years ago they said “We need a keyboarder” and I said “Oh yeah that’s me” (Laugh)

And there you are again! Will you also play it on stage?

The plan is that maybe we could do it for the festivals, we did it on the last tour, and I played the piano on “The Hammer has fallen”. I quite liked it and it’s also nice because it makes a variation during the show, instead of me jumping around like a crazy motherfucker you know. It’s also the opportunity to play something slower because usually you need to rest a bit, it’s time to breathe and you can see something different happening on stage.

Well I hope we will see that! I’d like to ask you something about the cover. You’ve done a special one for the limited edition of “Heroes” with a lot of flags, how have you chosen them? Are they representing countries where you have the biggest fan community or is it just countries where you have your greatest heroes?

No actually we wanted flags for the countries we sing about in the album. But how was the flags placed I don’t know, we ask our art designer who did the artwork how he should arrange them, him as an artist knows better how it should looks like.
To be honest visually I’m useless, I cannot paint, I cannot do anything, I can just look a picture and say “I like it” or “I don’t like it” but I can’t explain what’s right or wrong.

Yeah I understand… music is your stuff!

Exactly!

Actually this cover reminds me something, is the throne the “Iron Throne” from “Game of Thrones”? Can you enlighten us?

I don’t know, I have no idea. I haven’t watched the series “Game of Thrones” this much, I only saw the first season and I quite liked it actually. But I actually don’t know I’m sorry, that’s embarrassing but I have no idea…

Oh no that’s no big deal, it was just a question like that, that’s not really important.

Maybe you should ask to our art designer! (Laugh)

Yeah maybe you should give me his phone number! (Laugh)
Now you got your own festival and your own cruise festival, which is really amazing, how do you feel about it?

It’s the craziest way of doing things, we wanted to do a show and the promoters said “No we don’t want to do a show” so we said “We’re going to do our own shows!” (Laugh)
You know, we believe in SABATON, and what I really love about these two events is that they are the two opposite sides of the same coin. Our festival, the “Sabaton Open Air” in our home town is a full production, the biggest pyro show we have, the stage set, the lights. A year we played the whole “Art of War”, and this year we plan to play all “Carolus Rex” in Swedish and you cannot do it somewhere else and now we have the time to do it because nobody’s saying “You can only play for one hour and twenty minutes”. Now we can play as long as we want! (Laugh)
While the “Sabaton Cruise” is: “You take 2000 metal heads and we go on a boat”. And there we have no stage or pyros and we play songs by asking to the crowd: “Hey! Which song do you want to hear next?” We usually do that on the cruise.

I’m sure it’s a big party! I’d love to do this kind of thing one day.

Well come next time! It’s a great party, most people are Swedish people but we have people from 25 different countries. People drink a lot because there are no taxes, so there’s a very good atmosphere in there! (Laugh)

I really have to do it!! As we’re talking about touring, this summer you’re going to play at the Hellfest in France. What are you expecting from this show and the crowd?

I’m really looking forward to play it because we were already there a couple of years ago and that was sad for the band and for me because, well, we played the show, the sun was shining and there was a lot of band I wanted to see myself, and this year as well. But then it turned out that the food I had the day before was bad so I got food poisoned so I had to leave the festival 20 minutes after the show and I started to feel bad, I was in my hotel, puking in the toilets all night so this is my come back I think! (Laugh)
I want to see many bands myself.

I hope you’ll be better! Can we expect more shows in France on the upcoming tour in winter?

There are no dates booked, so nothing is confirmed but we’re taking care of it right now. I can say that it will be a tour with the most French dates we’ve ever done. I won’t make promises that I can’t keep but you can expect it between… October and February.

Wait and see… Actually it’s a great new! After touring and touring again you will surely record a new album. Would you like to do another concept album like “Carolus Rex”?

I wish I would have time for it because doing an album like that, although I really love it, is very exhausting and I don’t want to do it again, but wait two years and we’ll do it again! (Laugh).
You have to follow the story line, everything is closed together. When you have the story line you maybe end up with four fast songs in a raw but it’s not god because it’s not a nice listening experiment. You have to do fast songs and slow down a little bit like a rollercoaster ride.
Having all these elements, doing all that research is very moving but also time consuming. Before the record I didn’t want to do this again, but when we did this album I thought “Hum… I would like to make a concept album again!” (Laugh)

I hope you will do that again, I love these kinds of albums…
Well Joakim I think we’ve reached the end so I leave you the final words if you want to conclude or say something to the French fans.

I’d like to thanks French fans for the good time. We played here a couple of times and the French crowd is really the greatest, we had great proms almost every time, so thank you!

Thank you Joakim for your sympathy and your time! I wish we could meet during the Hellfest!

You’re welcome! Thank you! And see you!