GRAVE
‘EXTREMELY ROTTEN SCUMBAGS’ – AND THE MUSIC THEY MAKE…

All kinds of thinkable and unthinkable synonyms of ‘to die’; 72,9 % of all medico-lingo related to ailments of the flesh and abnormalities of the mind; virtually each and every single deity, spirit, demon or avatar from miscellaneous ancient, occult and exotic mythologies; most of The Infernal Names listed in the Book of Leviathan otherwise known as the fourth and final chapter in the Satanic Bible; tons of homosexual orc warriors and barren plains of doom +2 from Lord of the Rings; all sorts of bits’n’pieces related to, extracted from or inserted into sexual organs of human, humanoid or alien origin; zillions of known as well as unknown words with the prefixes ‘de’, ‘in’ or ‘dis’ – and so on and so forth... Today it is a nigh-on ‘mission impossible’ to find an apposite and freely available extreme-metal moniker.

Asphyxiate – taken.
Progeria – taken.
Suttung Schmuttung – taken.
Adramelechlachloch Nessie of Evil – taken.
Fluffy Pink Dress Uruk-Hai – taken.
Cock Juice & Butt Plugs – taken.
Degorge, Ingorge or Disgorge – taken, taken, taken!

So to those uninformed individuals who do not know the outfit, it should be obvious (from the obviousness of the name itself) that Grave is an old’n’old-school one. Meaty riffs, catchy refrains, elephantine beats and a hypersonic synthesis brutal enough to shave the fur off of lesser rodents. Aye, this beer-driven steamroller with vocalist Ola Lindgren at the helm is still a strapping death-metallic force to reckon with. Subsequent to a brief and cataclysmic soundcheck, Evilution sat down with all four members of Grave around the oaken table backstage at The Rock in Copenhagen for a handful of Big Ben caramels, one shared bottle of some flamboyant, fruity substance and a freshly printed time-travel apparatus. Here is what these stalwart Swedes had to confess about their misdemeanours back in an age when death metal was still just an off-track creek in the everflowing stream of metal-music...

# Comparing your earliest demo recordings to the latest full-length release Fiendish Regression and all the material in between, what has been the most distinctive feature in the Grave sound over the years? 

Jonas Torndal: “[laughs]. Simplicity, I think. Very simple and groovy music that is easy to understand. We have never been technical in any way, but just made very straightforward music that is easy to listen to: a mix between really slow, heavy stuff and faster parts. Nothing too complicated.”

# What were your earliest inspirational sources?

Ola Lindgren: “First of all, we were inspired by the early thrash bands that we listened to. Slayer, Celtic Frost, Kreator, Destruction... Those kinds of bands. Then it began to be heavier and more aggressive with the birth of death metal; and I guess we were part of that as well. There was a lot of demo trading back in the old days. We traded with Morbid Angel, Autopsy, Carcass and all the big names before they were signed.”

# When did you decide to make death metal the orientation of your professional music career? 

Jonas: “That wasn’t a decision. We didn’t sit down and say: ‘Okay, guys...’ [laughs]. It just happened. We progressed from some thrashy stuff and then it just evolved into death metal-oriented music. The first demo we did with the band Corpse that we played in was all-out thrash/speed metal, and the two first Grave demos were very thrashy as well. There is a little more death metal in the second one, but it was not until the third demo that you could really say it was death metal-inspired, which were also the songs that we wrote for the first album.

# Grave were one of the first bands to define the ‘death metal proper’ style. Was there a healthy sense of competition between the pioneer acts of that time?

Ola: Absolutely. Tape-trading was so big in those days that everybody, whether we’re talking magazines, fans or other bands, helped spread our name, and we appeared on compilation tapes and so on. People heard each other’s stuff as soon as it was available. Nobody had to wait for the official releases; when a demo was done you sent it out to whoever wanted it. You picked up influences from others, and at the same time there was a bit of competition. Not in a bad way but in a way so that each band would try to outdo the others by being more aggressive or brutal.”

Jonas: “Heavier! [laughs].”

# What did the departure of Jørgen Sandstrøm before the release of Hating Life mean for the direction of the songwriting and the inner dynamics in the band?

Ola: “The only solid part of the band was me and Jens [Paulsson – drums] back in those days, and we kind of discussed back and forth what we should do. Should we form another band? Should we bring in new members? Should we release our music under another name, or should we keep the name and keep going? I wrote a lot of the early stuff, as well as I wrote a lot together with Jørgen. There was never a song that was written completely by one person, because we worked so much together. But he did have a strong influence on the songwriting, absolutely, and he also did most of the lyrics back in those days since he was the vocalist. Jørgen was a big loss for the band, no doubt about that, but I guess that in the end me and Jens just decided that we should keep on going, give it a shot and see what came out of it.”

# So, the release of Hating Life could more or less be seen as a new start for the band?

Ola: “Yeah, it came out in a time when the interest for death metal was not so impressive, in the mid- to late-90s. The black metal scene was flourishing, so there was very little interest in death metal from both fans and labels. I also think the record was kind of misinterpreted by people, in that it wasn’t a death metal album that we failed doing in the right way. Rather, we tried to work with other influences, and the vocals weren’t supposed to be death metal-like on that album since the songs were very different as well. Everything about that album was more back to the roots; it was more thrash-oriented and simpler. If I had wanted to sing death metal vocals on that record I could have done it, but it wouldn’t have fit the music, and that is the reason why we did it in a different way. I think a lot of people took that the wrong way. They thought it was the best we could do with our usual style at that point.”

# Grave toured with Malevolent Creation in Europe back in 1991. What do you remember from those early days in the touring history of the band, and in what ways is life as a death metal musician on the road different today?

Fredrik Isaksson: “We smoke less weed now [laughs].”

Jonas: “True, and another thing is that the sound guys understand our kind of music much better today. Back in those days, nobody could do a proper mix for a death metal band. But otherwise I think it’s pretty much the same. We’re older...”

Ola: “That tour happened 12-13 years ago, and back then it was the first thing we did outside of Sweden. I was 19 or 20 when we signed with Century Media and got the first album out. Just to do that was like a big dream come true. Shortly after that we got the offer for the tour, and we just went for it. Everything is like a dream when you’re a kid. You start playing because you want to do what the rock stars do. Life in a death metal band is completely different from that, but you get around the world. We toured both in Europe and the US for the first album, and you get a lot of experience and knowledge of what’s going on and how everything is done on the road. A lot of positive things happened on that tour and I don’t really remember anything negative except from being away from home.”

# From a strictly personal perspective what is the biggest difference in playing with Grave today compared to when the band started out back in the mid-80s in terms of how the band members work together?

Ola: “Back in those days, I think, it was more about the things you dreamt of doing and not having a normal life, like going to work every day and so on. There was nothing besides that, really. Today we have been on so many tours that we know how it works, and we are fortunate to still do what we want to do – and we’ll keep on doing it. There’s no money in this business so that we can have it as a steady job, unless we’re touring all year long. So that’s obviously not why we’re still in this business. We have a larger perspective and more experience today. Hopefully, we’re better musicians today than we were at the beginning... [everybody laughs]. If people continue to appreciate our music, we’ll keep on doing the music that we know how to play.”

# What prompted the band to strike back with Back from the Grave in 2002 and take a return to the earliest style from the first albums?

Jonas: “We just started to rehearse and have fun again. Why not start to make some new songs?”

Ola: “Yeah, we started jamming again in late 1999 or early 2000. We had very little contact with Century Media throughout all those years after the touring for Hating Life up to when we started to write and record Back from the Grave, but they told us that they were interested. We hadn’t really done anything for a lot of years; not even rehearsing the old stuff. Everyone was just feeling really good, and we got Fredrik in the band as bass player. We got Jonas back in the band as second guitarist, and we felt that we had a complete line-up for the first time in many years. Everyone contributed with their own stuff to get the songs together. We were still on Century Media and we still had records to put out on our contract, so... Why not?”

# What Grave album would you single out as your favourite?

Jonas: “Soulless!”

Ola: “Yeah, Soulless.”

# Why is that? 

Jonas: “It’s one of the best death metal albums ever, in my opinion. I just love that album. I have nothing to do with that album; I’m not playing on it or doing everything. I got it on tape and I played it in my car for two months straight.” 

Ola: “Soulless was the first step, I think, from the pure brutal death metal we did before. We got more groove into the music, and the songs were more consistent. There were no thoughts behind it in the sense that we sat down and structured it in a certain way. It just came out like that, and everything is very consistent all the way through the album, so I couldn’t pick a song that I think is better or worse than any other on that album. A great album from start to finish.”

Fredrik Isaksson: “Fiendish Regression, the last one we did, is also one of our best albums.”

# Would you even go as far as to say that Soulless was the first release on which Grave realised what the band had initially set out to achieve?

Ola: “I think so, yeah. Every band’s first album is basically a compilation of a lot of the demo tracks they did before. Morbid Angel, Carcass or whatever... I think there are four or five demo tracks on Into the Grave, and the other half consists of songs that were written in the same period of time. The same is the case with You’ll Never See; there are a couple of demo tracks on there as well. We evolved with every record, but it never went out of hand. We never went too far and said to ourselves: ‘Okay, now we can handle super-technical stuff.’ When we’re jamming in the rehearsal room and coming up with riffs, we can immediately say whether or not we can use it in Grave. We might record and keep it for something else, but we decide right there in the rehearsal room what we can use and what we can’t.”

# The release of the first Grave album introduced a brutality in music that was, to a large extent, quite unheard of back in those days. Today we have myriads of death metal bands pushing the boundaries of brutality and extremity. Is there still a certain shock factor – so to speak – to the Grave sound these days?

Jonas: “Absolutely. A lot of bands try to be as fast as they can, while we concentrate on making heavy and... I wouldn’t say groovy, but perhaps catchy music. There’s not really a good word for it, you know. If I listen to something I want to feel the music. I don’t want to pick it up and process the information that comes in. You should be able to crank music up really, really loud and feel it in your body.”

Fredrik: “Music should make you feel like drinking beer and smashing bottles [laughs].”

Jonas: “Yeah, exactly. That’s the feeling I want to get when I listen to something good instead of just being forced to sit down and concentrate: ‘Right, now the drums are doing this, while the guitars are playing the eight riff in this song. Maybe they’ll go back to the first one? No, they’re didn’t want to that anyway...’ [laughs].”

Ola: “If you go to a concert to see a progressive death metal band or a really fast band, you can’t tell the songs apart. If you go to a Grave concert – and you may never have heard us or even heard death metal music before – you can instantly get into the songs. You can understand and follow the music: ‘Okay, this is the chorus and this is the refrain.’ That’s the simplicity we’re after. Nothing extremely complicated, but just very simple music that’s easy to get into to.”

Jonas: “We play the songs that we want to hear. That’s what we’re trying to do instead of making an effort to find out what people want to hear or what is trendy right now. We write the music that we would like to hear on an album.”

Ola: “And we’re such crappy musicians that we can’t play all the technical stuff anyway [everybody laughs].”

Fredrik: “Ah, so we’re telling him the truth now? Oh, okay... [everybody laughs again].”

# How has the second-wave death metal fans, if you will, in general reacted to your material?

Ola: “The people that we met on the road in the old days were all at our own age, basically, since we were only 20 or 21 back then. So everyone was at that age or older. That was how it was up until 1996 when we did the last tour for the Hating Life album. We had a break and then we did Back from the Grave, and we didn’t really know what to expect with that album. Either the songs would be okay or they wouldn’t; either people wouldn’t recognise our music at all or they would enjoy it a lot. We figured we would try and get a lot of attention around the album when it was released and do a lot of promotion for it, and we got a very good reaction both from Europe and the US. People said to us: ‘This is what we want to hear today. We’re tired of hearing ‘blast-bands’ or technical bands trying to outplay each other.’ We did an album that was back-to-the-roots and groovy just like the way Grave is supposed to be. So that’s how we came to feel that we should keep on doing this and get another album out as soon as possible after the touring for Back from the Grave. The second generation of death metal fans that we meet today and who are in their early 20s have perhaps heard Back from the Grave or the latest album, and then they want to go out and pick up the earlier material. There is a bigger mixture in the audience today between people that you met 10 or 12 years ago and the newer fans.”

Jonas: “And then we have a fan in Germany who is, what, 50 years old? A very old guy who’s always in the front and headbanging [laughs].”

# You were one of the bands that sort of defined the Swedish death metal sound and made Tomas Skogsberg one of the most important producers from Sweden. To what extent do you hear the impact of Grave on the modern-day metal scene in Sweden?

Ola: “Hmm, Bloodbath? [everybody laughs]. I’m not saying that in a negative way, though, because that’s what they made themselves to be, and that’s what they’re always saying in interviews. They set out to make old-school music today – and that’s what they do, so there are no secrets behind it. There are a lot of Swedish bands...”

# Chaosbreed? 

Ola: “Yeah, Chaosbreed. The objective is to get back to the roots and do more straightforward stuff. What other bands do we have?” 

Jonas: “God Among Insects. This very old-school kind of death metal where you’re always trying to tune your instruments as low as possible; just like we did back in the early days. You can hear the influences everywhere, and we are also influenced by other bands, as you should be able to hear in our music.” 

Fredrik: “To pick up influences is a thing that you have to be able to build on and grow from as a musician.” 

Ola: “Nobody is so creative that they can come up with something that’s in a completely separate style, I think. Maybe it was possible in the early days with bands like Morbid Angel that kind of had a style of their own. And maybe we did too in our own way with bands like Entombed and Dismember. Nothing is original these days, I think. Everything sounds more or less like something else. You have to pick a little bit from here and a little bit from there and try not to rip off anyone else too obviously, you know. I see it more as a tribute to those bands that we really like and are inspired by.” 

# Were you ever significantly influenced by the American wave of death metal? 

Jonas: “No, not really. We toured with a lot of American bands, but I think we have a totally different style. Those bands are faster, more technical and have more blast-beats and grind parts.” 

Ola: “The only band I can think of is Autopsy. They were always very simple and straightforward; never overly technical. Actually, they were more Swedish than any of the other American death metal bands. Today you’ve got Goatwhore!” 

Jonas: “Yeah, they mix black metal with old Celtic Frost and death metal. They’re a really good band.” 

# To a lesser or greater extent the lyrics on the various Grave albums all contain anti-religious sentiments. That theme or element has remained stable, but has the perspective changed throughout the years? 

Jonas: “Uh, no? [everybody laughs].

Ola: “In the early days, I think, it was more just rebellion against anything.”

Jonas: “It was gorier back then.”

Ola: “Yeah, that’s true. Back then we were trying to get influenced by reading Carcass lyrics or whatever, as well as the more Satanic bands and so on. So that was how we were anti-religious in the early days. Today it’s more reality-based because you see so much shit going on around the world. Even very close to where we live in Sweden, with all these fanatic religious people.

Jonas: “It’s all about sssex... [everybody laughs].”

Ola: “I don’t know if you’ve heard about this incident in Sweden with the Knutby trials. It’s a small village north of Stockholm where they had a religious community that was almost more like a sect, Pingstkyrkan [The Pentecostal Church]. They had this one lady who was appointed to be the bride of Christ. She was to marry Jesus when he came back on earth. They decided everything. The rules were all very strict. The reverend in the community fucked everyone he possibly could. He took the demons out of them by fucking with them.”

Fredrik: “Classic.”

Ola: “Yeah, the classic case [laughs]. In the end it turned out that he had persuaded his nanny to kill his wife and his neighbour. She didn’t succeed in killing his neighbour, though. She shot him in the head and killed the wife of the reverend so they could be together and blah, blah, blah... Oh yeah, and the wife he had five, six or seven years before died in a very mysterious way, and they suspected him for having killed her as well. We were in the studio for the latest album, and there were no lyrics written at all when we went in there; we only had the music done. I sat up in the late nights and early mornings trying to figure out stuff, and all you had to do was put on a TV because the Knytby trials were going on at the same time. There are three or four songs on the album, at least, that are totally taken out from that incident with both perspectives represented: looking at it from the outside and as the people in that community. We did an interview with Close-Up and one of the headlines is: ‘We had no lyrics at all when we entered the Abyss Studio; the Knutby people couldn’t have chosen a better time to start killing each other’ [everybody laughs].”

# What is your greatest achievement as a band?

Jonas: “Record an album [laughs].”

Ola: “Yeah, that was the goal to start with: to record an album and maybe go on tour. I started playing when I was 13, and we played in a couple of bands before we formed Corpse in 1986. I was 16 when we started that band and 18 when we formed Grave. During those years we had a lot of idols, and all you wanted to do was the same thing as they did. Whether you’re into sports or whatever, you have some kind of idol or a goal that you want to achieve.”

Jonas: “We actually met all those idols, hanging out with them and drinking beers.”

Ola: “Right, there’s not really much depth to it. We’re actually able to do today what we set out to achieve 15 years ago – and still have fun doing it. The feeling and atmosphere in the band are a lot better now than they have been for many, many years. Pelle is a bit quiet, though... I guess he’s more into the Corpse period [laughs].”

Pelle: [grunts and takes another sip of his beer]

# Are there any songs that are mandatory for a Grave live concert?

Ola: “Yes, there are [he sighs with a smile on his face]. We have to play “Soulless”, “Into the Grave” – and for myself: “You’ll Never See”. Basically, we have to play the title tracks from the first three albums, but it’s not only for the fans. We like to play and hear those songs as well [pauses]. Well, we like playing them live rather than doing it in the rehearsal room, because when you’re playing them on stage you get the response from the audience. It’s a totally different thing. Playing a song like “You’ll Never See” for the 8.400^th time in the rehearsal room doesn’t really give me anything [everybody laughs].”

Jonas: “You get a boner, man. Every time you hear that song you get a fucking boner...”

--> Conducted and written by Misereion.