"There
was a special atmosphere in that house that created a dark and a
sort of lonely mood..."
Read an interview with Tomas
Amneskog
written by J Andersson
in August 2005.
#Can you tell us about the recordings of the new forthcoming
album?
-“Well, we’ve just finished off the basic recording sessions and
are right now taking a few weeks off. We’ve spent the summer in
a lonely house on the west coast of Sweden, just outside a town
called Halmstad. The house was totally separated from the
civilisation; at least it felt like that. We brought the studio
equipment to the old house deep into the forest, just beside an
empty road leading to nowhere. The first two or three days we
just installed the equipment, tested the levels and the sound,
adjusted and fine-tuned microphones, compressors, limiters and
instruments. Martin Holmström (Peekaboo Studio) helped us out
configuring the recording equipment. When those days had passed
the rest was just hard work.”
#How many songs did you record, and how did they end up?
-“Before the recording sessions we picked the thirteen best
songs from all of the material we had worked with during the
last couple of years. Thirteen really great songs were recorded
during those weeks in the old house. We discovered that some of
them turned out even better than we expected. There was a
special atmosphere in that house that created a dark and a sort
of lonely mood – we think that affected the songs, especially
the vocal sessions, and gave the expression more intensity.”
#Can you describe the working process during those weeks?
-“All the members came together for the first time in months. We
lived together under the same roof during the summer, and we
really didn’t do anything else than working with the new album.
The process was really simple; we work as our own producers – a
close teamwork within the band. We just needed help to configure
the equipment during the first days. Our friend Fredrik
Johansson joined us for a few days to add some acoustic guitar
to some of the songs. The rest was up to our selves, and we
really tried to bring out the best of the weeks in that old
house – even if there were times when we felt like just giving
up. We usually started the day at lunchtime listening and
editing the recordings from the day before. After a break in the
afternoon we worked until the early morning before we needed to
sleep for a few hours. We tried to alternate recording vocals
and other instruments to get some variation because the days
were really alike; some days we didn’t know if it was Monday or
Wednesday, Tuesday or Thursday.”
#You mentioned that you were close to giving up. What
happened?
“When you live close together in a house, where you can’t do
anything but working with the album – you sometimes fall into a
negative mood, and you just feel like you don’t perform the best
you can, even if you know that you do. A session like this is
always a struggle; you fight with your daemons all the time. We
also had huge problems with the computer. One day it just
crashed without any reason and we lost a lot of files on the
hard discs. We changed to another computer but after a few days
it crashed as well. At this point we just felt like cracking up.
We lost focus on the creative work and it took a few days to get
back on track again. The problems we had during those weeks with
the computers will delay the release of the new album, maybe for
six months. Some of the production was not finished as we
planned, so we hope the new album will be released in the spring
of 2006. These computer problems are really hard to cope with
because you can’t rely on the machines as you are used to. If
you don’t know if they will do the job you need them to do, you
end up with that insecure feeling that affects everything you do
– especially the creative work. But in the end we managed to
record most of the vocals and the acoustic instruments for the
chosen songs despite all the technical challenges we were thrown
into. But as I said before, some of the work is still to be
finished before we will mix the new album at Peekaboo Studios in
Gothenburg.“
#What’s up next?
-“I think we will have to work both with editing and production
for a few months. Some new recording sessions are planned later
this autumn to complement the material we’ve got. Then we need a
few weeks to prepare for the final mix, mostly working with the
final arrangements and “cleaning up” among all the tracks. The
final mix will take place at Peekabo Studios in Gothenburg, and
we think we’ll spend a few weeks, maybe months as well, to put
all the pieces together. Most of the job is done and that feels
really great – now it’s just hard work to finish it all up. So
far we’re very proud and satisfied with what we have
accomplished together. We’re really looking forward to put the
last pieces together…”
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Interview by J Andersson for Kiethevez.com