Diablo Swing Orchestra pour l'album "The Butcher's Ballroom"

Sans que rien ne nous y ait vraiment préparé, Diablo Swing Orchestra a débarqué cette année sur nos platines avec un "Butcher's Ballroom" savoureux, premier album impressionnant de maturité qui lui permet sans mal de prétendre au titre d'"OVNI musical de l'année".

We know - from your official bio - that you're some kind of reincarnation of a rebel medieval band that once attracted themselves the wrath of religious authorities. That's the official - and of course the only true - story of Diablo Swing Orchestra. But what fairy tales are you usually obliged to tell to the poor down-to-earth people that can't stand the truth ? That you met at school ? Or at a Dungeons & Dragons convention ? Or at a musical and mental institution ?

You're right, some people are just too narrowed minded and have a problem comprehending the legacy that our ancestors left behindnot to mention the burden we have to cope with everyday to measure up to it…

Anyway to those people this is how the story goes:

We all met during a wine/cider tasting here in Sweden in where and since we share this passion we all started talking about this and that. All of a sudden we'd realized that we all are into the same kind of music and therefore the idea of starting a band came about. We all also had huge gambling debts so we thought it would be a wise move to start up a band to make some cash.


You mix a lot of different "classical" musical styles together with more metal music: it's amazing how versatile your music sounds in the end. Is there any limit to what you can and want to write ? What would make you think: "No, this is not going to make it to the new D.S.O. album" ?

The frame for our compositions is quite broad as you say and I don't think we have anything that we will not try for a song, if we feel it fits it'll end up in a song. And on the other hand we always come up with ideas that sounds great in theory but when we try them out they'll sound complete rubbish.


Being a very uncommon and avant-garde band, like Mr Bungle or Carnival in Coal in some extent, and these two bands having both disbanded after the release of their third album because of divergences about musical tastes and expectations, do you also plan to call it quit after your third album will be released ? ;) More seriously, how do you succeed to make all the band members happy with the material composed within D.S.O. ?

Taking on the name of Diablo Swing Orchestra comes with certain obligations, we can't play crap music with such a name so it is our duty to quit before we get too old and tired and are no longer up for the task.

As a matter of fact I think we will peek with our 3rd album or 4th album and then I hope we have the dignity to step down and pass a letter on so that the orchestra can get reunited in 500 years or so.


I want to congratulate you for having succeeded to keep Annlouice Loegdlund in D.S.O. when she was offered to join Nightwish (wasn't she ? ;) ). She has a wonderful voice and I guess she must have a strong background in more classical music, hasn't she ?

She is a professional opera singer here in Sweden and we are as you say very pleased that we've managed to keep her to ourselves this far. Oferss are flying around and hopefully she will honor the pact and reamin with in the band.


After many listens, I really enjoy the whole "Butcher's Ballroom" album a lot, still I find that the first half of the album is more experimental and catchy, while the second half is more "classic" Nightwish-like music (sorry for the comparison, please don't punch me in the face !) - with far more progressive and groovy elements, of course, but let's say a little bit more conventional than "Balrog Boogie" or "Poetic Pitbull Revolutions". Do you think I should stop hard drugs or do you agree with that point of view ?

Yes, that opinion has been expressed before and we feel that actually strikes a nice balance on the album. If we would had an album only containing songs such as “Balrog Boogie” we would have been written off as a “comic” or “gimmick” band but on the other hand if we would only had songs such as Zodiac Virtues we would have less things to distict us from other bands, even though we feel those songs are just as good but in a different way.

This way people have bigger problems to pigeonhole us into a category and with this kind of debut album we can go in any direction we feel like on our second effort and it will feel as a natural proggession.


One thing I wonder is how did you manage to get in touch with Candlelight ? Did they contact you after having being blown during one of your gigs, or did you send them some demos because you thought such a metal label would fit your musical expression (let's keep in mind that Emperor, Mithras and Obituary are on Candlelight's roster) ?

I was in contact with Lee Barret (the founder of the label and bassist of To-mera) when we were done with the album and started to promote it ourselves. Then Lee once again got involved with Candlelight as an A&R and asked if we wanted to sign with Candlelight. In their rososter were were at the time of the signing somewhat of an “ugly duckling” but thanks to Lee their rooster have expanded quite a lot with various bands.


I know there is still no date planed in France for you to come and tour here (poor Frenchies …), still what can I expect from a D.S.O. show when I'll finally succeed to attend one ?

A lot of energy and a much more raw sound than on the record. We don't use any backing tapes so we need to do some rearrangements of the songs to keep it sounding full but I belive we've managed to do that.


What bands would you like to share stages with ?

I think that an evening with us, Unexpect, To-mera and Stolen Babies would make up an interesting musical evening.


What are your favourites bands ? Metal and non metal ? Some advices on bands we'd better check out ?

Everyone should check out the soundtrack to the movie “Les triplets de Bellville” Awesome music and a great inspiration to us all when we did our album.

Other than that I'm really looking forward to Serj's (SOAD) solo effort.


Have you got any idea about where DSO will head for in the forthcoming albums and years to come ? More diversity ? The search for more commercial success ? More focus on this or that musical style ? What about some R'n'B, techno, or ethnic music thrown in the mix ?

Well, we wont try and change our sound for a big commercial success that's for sure. However I think that this kind of music can be suselful seeing how well the album has been received so far. We will use some of the same elements as on TBB and also bring in some new one such as tango and gospel. We are confident that we're sitting on a hit of epic proportions for the next album, the working title is “The vodka Inferno” and it's a mix between Russian folk music and Walt Disney Christmas music. ;) It's may not sound very commercial on paper but let me assure you it got an infectious refrain.


I know that "The Butcher's ballroom" is already critically acclaimed worldwide (at least that's what I witness reading reviews on the web): what about the sales so far?

We haven't gotten the sales statement from Candlelight yet since the album has only been out for about a month. But before that I must say we have been very pleased with the sales in the rest of the world considering the non-existing marketing budget. And if you look at for instance our last.fm page one can see that the music is spreading quite rapidly.

Je suis curieux de voire si Candlelight va être capable de gérer le (très) gros potentiel de ce groupe. En tout cas, après avoir récupéré Obituary, Diablo Swing Orchestra, Gorod et la distribution de la totalité du catalogue Willowtip Records en Europe, on peut dire que ce label à quelques beaux atouts pour toucher le pactole dans les mois à venir !