Dark Tranquillity lors du Eastpak Antidote Tour à Paris

During Character tour, you recognized you wanted your next album to be more experimental. However Fiction is perceived more as a best of what you have done so far than something really different (except “Inside The Particle Storm”). Even if there are new elements, Fiction is not the kind of album which make you say : “That's the new style of Dark Tranquillity”. How did it turned up this way?

It is right I have said that in an interview but I only write about 5% of the music so in the end it was not that experimental: actually Fiction is a kind of a showcase of all the different faces of the band.


What about the re appearance of Haven dots on the cover ?

This is somehow a secret for the moment. There is a purpose behind it but we promised not to reveal it.


Is it a kind of private joke?

Yeah something like that.


I would like to come back on “Inside The Particle Storm”: it is the first time in many years that you create every parts of a song. Are you willing to be more invested in song writing again?

Normally the riffs that I write are really hard to combine with what the other come up with. I use different scales, there is also a different vibe in my riffs so when I show my work to the rest of the band, they often say it is good but it is too hard to integrate it. So this time I tried to write a complete song and the guys liked it. I wrote the lyrics as well with the intention that Mikael should rewrite them but he liked them.

We have been talking a bit about the fact that the different members should try and write a complete song instead of just riffs. But it is impossible for us to make any clear plan of what we are going to do next.


The thing with “Inside The Particle Storm” is that many people picked it as their favorite from the album because it was so different from what you have done in a close past. When you listen to this song, you are surprised and it makes you like it even more. Are you aware that for many people Damage Done, Character and Fiction are pretty similar album even if of course they are different?

Yeah, I do agree with that but we have different opinions about it in the band.


It be might of topic but I think our musician readers will be interested by this question: How long have you been playing guitar before entering Dark Tranquillity? Did you learn on your own? What kind of stuff did you play before creating your own music?

We formed the band just one week after we had bought the guitars. We were all friends at school and we just decided who would play what and that was the way it began. We were not able to play at all, let alone cover songs, since we had a very poor level. So we made our own songs from the beginning. That's 18 years from now…We might have took like 2 or 3 basic rock guitar lessons but we mainly learned by ourselves.


Before the release of Fiction, you said there would be a video for “Misery's Crown”: will this still happen?

There will be a video for it but for lot of weird reasons it has been delayed. It's all business and timing reasons. We also planned that an EP should be released for “Misery's Crown” and I still hope it will but it depends of reasons that we do not control such as the fact that we would do a special tour or something like that – that would give reasons for the label to give an extra push to the album. As for the video, we have most of it recorded so I hope it will be broadcasted within the end of the year, but it could be next year. It will be finished for sure.


It might be a bit early to talk about that but if you were to pick one or two songs on Fiction which could describe the orientation you want to take for your next album, which ones would they be? You don't have to chose any if you think it will be totally different

It is impossible to say. We have not yet a single song or a single riff for a new album. We have been working on some stuff by ourselves but we are mainly focused on the promotion on Fiction and did not even talk of a possible new album yet.


You talked about an upcoming DVD : can you tell me more about it?

Yeah I think Mikael talked about that in some interview. For the moment the only thing is that both the record label and us think that we should do a DVD for this album. Our first DVD was not that great and we want to do something better. We don't know where and when: maybe whenever a good opportunity shows up we will think about it more precisely but for now it is just something that we keep in mind for whenever it will be possible.


You went to the Hellfest this year: I was not there because it would have been only for you but I heard that it was a little chaos. Did you have the same feeling?

Well, actually many people told us many bad things when we got there but I guess we were lucky since it was not raining when we were there and in the end it did not seem such a mess to us.


Many smaller band than you are doing headlining tours, probably in smaller venues but the point is they get a longer set and a crowd which is there to see them and not to suffer from them: I can tell you that in 2005, all the Chimaira's fan I knew were bored during your set the same way I left the venue before the end of Chimaira's set since I am not into their music at all. The feeling I have, as a fan, is that your tour are not really usefull for you since only people who already like you a lot will agree to pay 30 euros to see just 45 minutes to 1 hour of your music. The ones who like you will often stay at home instead of watching many songs they have already seen live

We realize that not headlining is not the best thing and we keep saying we would like to headline, but things are not simple, it's all about albums sales, the competition is really hard these days with so many bands touring and in the end, headlining would sometimes just not be wise financially speaking. The promoters do not really want to invest more in a band if they do not have the guarantee that they could make a profit.

However we are aware of the situation and the plan is definitely to make a headline tour in the spring.

As for doing tour with bands who have different style, I guess you have to try it out. Concerning the Chimaira Tour that you mentioned, it is real that even if they are a great band, they are not appreciated by most of our fan since their music is pretty different. And same goes with their fan with our music.


There are some band such as The Black Dahlia Murder or Darkest Hour which are way less well known than Dark Tranquillity but they headline: they pick some other metalcore bands and they do smaller venues, but they headline

You know, there are also some kind of logistics problems too. We have a crew travelling with us and we have a tourbus. I know there are lot of other bands which do it on a smaller scale and maybe they do it with a van but you know, only one guy in Dark Tranquillity has his driver license so we could not drive ourselves. It may sounds like some kind of excuse but there are really so many things that make it so complicated. When you have a package like Soilwork, Caliban, Sonic Syndicate, it is way more easier to organize a tour because promoters know they can probably attract way more people. It just about money, of course it is the way it is but we are not really happy about the fact that we have been for so long in this support thing, this co-headlining thing.


Now that Character is not your last album, what do you think about it? How would you describe it compared to the other albums?

For Character we tried to make the kind of album where no song will stand out to much. You can call that a concept album. I don't listen to it so much these days. I mean, all the songs are good but I personally like the variations that are on Fiction.


Which is the album from Dark Tranquillity that you listen to the most?

Actually, I don't really listen to one album more than another, it really depend from the situation. I can listen to Skydancer or Projector, but actually when I listen to Dark Tranquillity, it is mostly when I listen to the new riffs, the demo versions, the materials we are working on.


I believe that you never played “Dry Run” live: am I right to think that it is the only Character song which was left out? You just do not like that song much or believe that it would be good live?

Yeah you are actually right. And yes you are probably right that it is the only song from Character that we never played live. A mid pace song like that could possibly be a good live song. It is real that when we talked about the song we would play when making setlists, that song just got lost but yes, maybe we should try it out.


Lethe has won the contest of the song survivor; a contest which lasted for many years on your forum: any comment about that fact?

I guess Lethe is one of the most popular songs. It is very emotional, very atmospheric; it is a very good live song also: I guess we always have one or two guy in the front row singing along. It is one of my favorites as well.


What do you think of people downloading Dark Tranquillity's music? I am not really speaking about album leaking on the web before the release but more about downloading your music in general

Everybody is doing it so I don't know. We do it as well.


But are you angry about that? About knowing that maybe half the people who know you tonight have only downloaded your music?

Well, they come to the shows, they will maybe buy shirt, maybe they will be convinced to buy an album. It is not really black or white. Things have changed so much. You see, I really like what Radiohead has done with the new album (you pay whatever you want to download it). It shows that there are bands with a dedicated fanbase. I think a lot of people will pay a good price for this album, to show their support to that kind of model. I think that actually most people are actually serious and devoted: they will buy the physical albums.


What is your top three albums of 2007: does not have to be metal

Actually, the album from a French band: Deathspell Omega. It is black metal brought to the logical extreme, it is almost the “ante music”.

There is also the new Kent album, a swedish rock band. It was released yesterday but I listened to it yesterday and it will definitely be in the top 3 of 2007 (since Niklas had no other album in mind, I said we could stop at 2 :p).


What are Dark Tranquillity plans for the year to come?

After this tour we will come to Greece for two shows and I think Israel. Then a tour in Japan next year. And definitely a US tour as well as another European tour but we do not have the details.