interview by: Roberto Martinelli

Don't always trust what you read. If I had gone along with what reviews in zines had told me, I might still believe that Dark Tranquility was this once great band that had been signed to Century Media Records, changed their logo, and wussed out. While the first two reports are indeed facts, and while the band did go in a different direction with albums like Projector (which I think isn't half bad), the artistic demise of Dark Tranquility has been greatly exaggerated. This originator of the Gothenburg sound has made an album to rank on many metal fans best of 2002 lists in Damage Done, which I'll go on record saying is their best album ever, Gallery or no Gallery. I waylaid vocalist Mikael Stanne during the bands stop in San Francisco on the Nile/ Napalm Death/ Dark Tranquility tour.

Maelstrom: Mikael, I've known you for about 10 minutes, and already I'm struck with how humble you are. You're one of the bands that started this whole genre: people say, "Dark Tranquility, In Flames, At the Gates are the ones that started the whole thing," and you're just a really humble, nice guy.

Mikael Stanne: We're just people who play music.

Maelstrom: I'm always struck with that when I speak with people who play metal.

Mikael Stanne: We started out being friends: me, Niklas, Martin and Anders. We lived on the same street when we were kids. We went to school together. We realized we were so bored so we decided to start a metal band. So that's it. And that's what we're still doing. And now, we can travel the world and do the stuff that we love. Of course, it's great, but we can't expect anything other than having fun and doing our thing. In this, we are lucky.

Maelstrom: Something that consistently impresses me about Swedish bands is how tight you all are. Ok, there's quite a bit of homogeneity, but you're so tight. I've heard stories of how the government pays for practice spaces and that makes a big difference.

Mikael Stanne: It's kinda true, but we didn't benefit from that, ourselves. We started out in my parents' garage and then moved on to 15 different practice spaces. We really enjoy rehearsing together. To me, it's a great release to be able to go down to our rehearsal room and scream my head off for a couple hours. We were pretty nervous about not sounding good enough.

Maelstrom: When were you nervous about that?

Mikael Stanne: Always.

Maelstrom: You think that drives you?

Mikael Stanne: Of course. When you stop thinking about that, things can turn bad.

Maelstrom: So this new record…you know, I wasn't expecting it to be great because I have to admit I was swayed by things I had read: the reviews I read of the past two records, three or four of them said, "Dark Tranquility, R.I.P. They wussed out, they're lame." So I thought, "well, I haven't listened to them that much before, so I guess they're not good. Then I got this promo and thought, "this is one of the best records this year!" So I went out and got Projector (one of the ones that got panned). You sing on that album, and I think you have a singing voice. I like some of the songs on that record. Damage Done is clearly better, but… How much do you pay attention to what people say? You look at Damage Done, and you've gone back to the rough vocals only. Were you aware of all this stuff?

Mikael Stanne: Of course we were aware of it, but if we listen to what people want to hear, we'd probably do The Gallery 10 times over. One of the reasons we did Projector in the first place is that we got tired of people pigeon-holing us into Gothenburg death metal, and that's all it is. As long as we feel that whatever we do is new, fresh and interesting and can give us something right back, that's what we'll do.

Maelstrom: So, where do all these ideas for Damage Done come from? Every song on there has something to really savor. I look forward to each successive song.

Mikael Stanne: It was a long writing process. One of the things we learned over the years, I guess, is to make all the songs special. It took one and a half years to write this album; we went through many things. We do all this production work in the rehearsal room that people normally do in the studio, so when we come in, we go, "here it is," and we put it on tape.

Maelstrom: Do you think you'll sing again?

Mikael Stanne: Ah, yeah, but I don't know when.

Maelstrom: Was it a conscious decision not to sing on this record?

Mikael Stanne: There was no room for it, and we didn't need it at all. This is an angry album. It's not remorseful.

Maelstrom: One of the things I really like about Damage Done is that you have just the right amount of quiet on it. I think it's on track 7 or 8 that you've got a nice bit, and then the bonus track, "I, Deception."

Mikael Stanne: That's just something you learn over the years.

Maelstrom: Do you ever step back and take an objective look at the gruff vocals and question it? This kind of style becomes normalized by listening to it all the time, but when I play something like this for a non-metal friend and he or she says, "why do they sing like that?" and I realize, hey, it is sort of silly or absurd.

Mikael Stanne: It is. I definitely thought about it in the beginning. The first thing I heard that I was intrigued with was "Flag of Hate" by Kreator. I was blown away by it. It was so extreme. I'd never heard someone sing like that. So we wanted to do aggressive music like that, but with tons of melody that we got inspired by bands like Blind Guardian and Helloween. We also got into bands like Morbid Angel, but we wanted to keep the melody. I love screaming and getting things out there. I would never write something I couldn't go on tour with. Standing on stage with hundreds or thousands of people, if it didn't mean something, I'd just be a puppet. What I write has to work being screamed.

Maelstrom: The secong song on Damage Done, "Hours Passed in Exile," has this lyric, "what if we are all different." What are you talking about in that?

Mikael Stanne: What if everyone else is the same and we (you and me, or someone we can connect with) are the ones who are different. I feel sometimes that it's all a blur: random people getting influenced by media, etc… Traveling the world, you see all these people and they're great, but we're kind of bonded by a certain thing, a certain music, a certain passion. When you see al the stupidity on TV, you sometimes wonder, what if they're right and we're wrong?

Maelstrom: So what are these hours passed in exile?

Mikael Stanne: That's the time when you can get away from your regular life and get a different perspective. You can find someone you really relate to, your friend or lover, and when you get away from that person or your family, you get a new perspective on things: that there are only a few people that you can really, really relate to, and the perspective you gain from being away from them.

Maelstrom: Mikael, what is the best thing ever?

Mikael Stanne: The best thing is being totally, 100 percent satisfied. Pulling something off that you didn't think you could do. The satisfaction of love. I'm not afraid to admit it: I'm a material guy. I love things. When I hook things up and they work, and I love it. The realization of doing what you set out to do.

Maelstrom: How do you keep challenging yourself? Like right now, you've done this record. What's the next thing?

Mikael Stanne: I have to sing much better; make songs much better. Take it somewhere we didn't expect; something that doesn't feel old. We're restless guys. You have to renew your relationships, whether it's with your girlfriend or with your band mates. We have to reinvent what we initially set out to do, to do something that feels amazing and is challenging.

first and last photo courtesy of Volker Beushausen

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