Jørn Viggo Lofstad (Pagan's Mind)
February 2008
Your fourth album is already out in the shops for a few months now. How about the initial reactions?
It has been very good. Absolutely the best so far. With our last three albums we have always gotten very good reviews; the press are treating us good. Maybe the biggest difference is that the amount of press that wants to talk to us has been tripled. I think we did more interviews in the last three months than what we did with our other three albums altogether. (Laughs)
How do you see the album now with almost four months after its release? Are you satisfied with everything or there are things you would change?
Well, being part of a lot of album productions over the years and not only Pagan's Mind, there's always a thing or two that you may want to change or to do in another way. But also there are certain songs that come out much better than you thought it would have. So all in all I'm very satisfied with the outcome of this album. We wanted a change in the sound from what we have done before. Of course it's still hundred percent Pagan's Mind as we didn't change extremely but we changed a bit if you compare it to the previous albums. There's always a risk when you change the winning formula but sometimes you have to take this step. On this album we went on to work with Stefan Glaumann and it proved to be one of the best decisions we ever made. We worked with Fredrik Nordström on the previous album and he did a great job but we wanted to have it more organic with a real band feel instead of what we had at Studio Fredman.
How did you end up choosing Stefan Glaumann?
It was really simple. I was very curious of how mixed Rammstein's "Reise Reise" album because the sound of the song "Mein Teil" blew me away. It was very organic but still very heavy and powerful. I checked it out and found out it was Stefan and then I realised that he did a lot of other stuff I knew as well. He already did Clawfinger in the early nineties. They released an album with a fantastic production and it was done by Stefan. He also did mainstream acts with great production so I quickly understood that he's one of the best guys around. That's why we chose him.
If you take a look at all four albums you did, how do you see Pagan's Mind development from day one?
Well, when we started with "Infinity Divine", the first album wasn't written by us as a band. I mean me, Steinar and Ronny, we kinda came in just a few months before we started recording the album. We only wrote the last song together and the rest of the album were songs that Nils and Thorstein had from their earlier projects that they wanted to use and record. We just tried to do the best job we could do on the songs. But they we went into the writing of "Celestial Entrance" and we spent 9-10 months to write it and everyone agreed that metal should be the centre of our music. So I would say that "Celestial Entrance" was the first thing that had all the guys working together on writing songs. The biggest quality difference from one album to another is definitely from the first album to the second. Then we stayed on the same path and released "Enigmatic Calling", which was maybe more guitar oriented than "Celestial Entrance" was and the new one is maybe a bit heavier but still 80-90% of the same formula. Maybe it's a bit heavier and less progressive but the prog elements are always there as they are part of the band. But we never really sit down and agree that now we're gonna write something different. We meet up in the rehearsal room and we jam together and the stuff that comes out is what we were inspired to play. We never really know what's gonna be next. We just try to make the best songs we can do at the time and that'll end up on the next album.
I think this is your most mature album to date. It has less obvious influences from other bands...
I completely agree with you. Almost every band that tried to play progressive metal gets compared to Dream Theater, Symphony X or some of the more known bands. Maybe we were inspired by some of these bands but we never tried to copy their music. It's just what came out of what we were working on. I think the direction we took wit our new album is not the direction those bands are taking lately. With the new album maybe we found the sound that you could even call the Pagan's Mind sound. It sounds fresh and maybe more original than what we've done before. I think that's a good sign as well.
How long have you been working on the songs of the new album?
It was about a year, year and a half but that does not mean that we have been working on songs every day. In general we had one or two rehearsals a week. When we had some ideas we recorded them so we ended up with a lot of material. We had a lot of cool material even some instrumental stuff that was really awesome but just didn't fit the album. Maybe we'll use that stuff later. The recording process for Pagan's Mind is... well, none of us like to be in the studio, it's a necessary evil, and it's something you have to do properly because you have to play good and make the right solutions regarding all the arrangements. It's a very tiring process. All of us have regular day jobs so it's not like that we can take one month off and travel to a nice place and only record and focus on the music. First some of the guys have to pick up their children in the kindergarten or school, go home for a dinner, then after that they can come into the studio and work there as well for some hours.
Is "God's Equation" a concept album?
It's party a concept album. It doesn't tell a story but it deals with the same topic. Actually it is Nils writing the lyrics but I can give you a brief overview about the story. The general concept of the album "God's Equation" is an expression that first came from Albert Einstein actually. He used that to try to explain the expanding of the universe. You see this goddess on the front cover and she's holding several known religious symbols in her hand. The message we wanted to send out is that everything what we call God comes from the same source. And the fact that we have a female goddess on the cover is kind of provoking like it would say that actually God is a female.
You already did a King Diamond cover song a few years ago and this time it's David Bowie. How come?
Well, there was a special reason why we recorded that King Diamond track back then. Our first album was released on a small Norwegian label and I don't think that people got to hear it very much. Then we got a record deal with Limb Music and released "Celestial Entrance" and after that they wanted to re-release out debut album. At that point we weren't really happy about doing that because frankly kind of felt that that album didn't represent how we wanted to develop but Limb insisted on doing that. We finally agreed but we told him that we wanted to give it a remix so we did that and we were also asked to do a couple of bonus tracks for that album. We wanted to make a surprise for the people but we had very little time doing it, so we recorded a new version of "Embracing Fear", which is quite different from the original. Then we thought about also doing a cover song but we didn't want to do something that would be obvious for the people. Doing a Dream Theater or Queensryche cover song would have made no sense so we went for a King Diamond song and you can hear that Nils was able to pull that off really nicely and so did the band. I think it was a nice surprise for the fans. Then on the next album we didn't have a cover song but for the new one we recorded "Hallo Spaceboy" by David Bowie. The reason we did that is not that we were in lack of ideas. I saw a David Bowie concert on TV a couple of years ago and I recoded it because it was so good. One of the songs he played there was "Hallo Spaceboy" and I remembered that song as it has very much the feel that we have in Pagan's Mind. I'm not talking about the heaviness or the way it is played but the chords, the vocal lines and the atmosphere. I thought it has something special about it and when we were finishing writing the songs me and Stian brought out the idea to the rest of the guys that maybe we should at least try to record this song. We changed the arrangement and we made our own take on that song and my personal opinion is that it became one of the best songs on the album. Actually I listen to that one the most on the album. I think we managed to do something original and brought new life to the song and that's why it ended up on the album.
Actually that's one of my favourite songs on the album...
Yeah, thank you very much. The funny thing about that song is that when you do cover songs you have to ask permission from the publishing company that has the rights for that song. We got in touch with the publishing company but they have a special rule regarding this as David Bowie has to approve these cover songs, so it's not like someone in the office just hands out the rights. He was gonna listen to it and decided whether he likes it or not. We were very surprised because we got a message from the publishing company that he approved the song and we could even print the lyrics, we could make a video for it, which basically meant that David Bowie enjoyed our version of his song and it was really really cool. That made my day when I heard that.
Cool. David Bowie is a Pagan's Mind fan!
(Laughs) Yeah. I don't know if he's a fan of the band, if he heard something else. That'd be cool but yeah, he's a fan of what we did to his song and that's really cool.
Is there any artist that you'd like to cover in the future?
I have no idea. We have no plans right now to do cover songs from any other bands. If you come up with something that you can bring new life to, we might do it but right now there's nothing in the works. Actually what we plan in the future of Pagan's Mind and that should come next is a live DVD that would kind of cover that we have done since we've started until now. So we should record material with our new album and the DVD should also contain recordings from the past. When we did the ProgPower festival in Atlanta we did a whole set with a lot of different artists, which was kind of an all-star jam. That whole show was actually recorded and filmed and maybe some of those songs would be a nice addition to the DVD as bonus material.
You'll replace Evergrey on the upcoming Brainstorm tour. How did that happen?
It happened very quickly. We were on tour together with Fates Warning in early December and when we did a gig in Hamburg we were talking about touring opportunities with our booking agent and about Evergrey pulling out of the Brainstorm tour. We thought it might be a good idea doing it. That's kinda how it started and in a few weeks it was decided that Pagan's Mind would support Brainstorm. I'm really looking forward to play in Hungary with Pagan's Mind because I've already played there with Jørn Lande last year and that was a very nice experience.
What kind of memories you have of that gig, btw?
That was awesome. And I remember we came the day before and we had a night off and we had some really nice food and I remember the promoter was nice to us. We had a round trip around the city. I didn't even know the city was divided into two: Buda was one part and Pest was the other. I really loved the buildings that reminded me a lot of Prague actually. It was very beautiful. Then we of course came to the boat and everything as awesome there. We had a nice crowd and some Norwegian friends were opening up for us. I remember we had a wonderful dinner on the first floor of the boat. That was the last gig on that tour and it was absolutely wonderful.
What do you think about the band you're opening up for on the upcoming tour?
I have to be honest, I never heard Brainstorm, not even one song. Maybe I've heard it without knowing it but I'm not familiar with the band at all. I heard good things about them and I guess they draw a good crowd as they are able to go on a headliner tour. I'm sure they're very nice guys so I'm really looking forward to it.
You mentioned about the Fates Warning tour. How did that go for Pagan's Mind?
I think it was a very successful tour for us. We started off in Holland and we have played there before and it was very funny because the first night we really blew them off stage and we sold twice as much merchandise and we had a better feedback from the crowd, which was very strange but all the gigs in Holland were very good for us. But in Germany we have not played so much before and Fates Warning were quite so big there. It was a very nice opportunity for us to play for people that haven't heard your music before. We got along with the Fates Warning guys very good, they were all very nice and they treated us very good. It was a really nice experience. I would love to go on tour with them again in the future. They are really nice guys and a really good band.
What was your best gig with Pagan's Mind so far?
The best gig? Oh my god! If you look at making no mistakes and sounding almost perfect then I think the best gig would be the last ProgPower gig we did in Holland in 2005. I remember that we played very well there. But as far as the most overwhelming experience for me was Sweden Rock Festival in 2003. It was the first time for the band to play in front of 5-6000 people. We made a lot of mistakes and we were as nervous as hell but in another way to get that feedback from people the first time was a very magical moment. That was definitely one of the most memorable shows we've ever done. And also it was very nice to come back to ProgPower USA last year. We played a good gig and the crowd was awesome.
On a sadder note, just a couple of months before the release of your new album, your former guitarist passed away. What happened to Thorstein?
None of us actually knew the seriousness of his condition until the end. He decided to leave the band in 2003 and he did that because of his condition. We did not know at that time that it was a tumour in his head. Thorstein was the kind of guy who really didn't like to talk about very serious stuff and he never shared these kind of things with us. I think that in May they planned to go to the US to have a very special kind of surgery that helped a lot of other people with tumour in their head. But then he got very very sick very quickly and they were unable to move him and in the end the tumour grew so quickly that there was no hope. We got to know the seriousness of his condition only a few days before he died. We went to see him and it was a very tough moment for the guys in the band. It's such a tragedy. He was 37 years old and really had so much to give, he had a great energy and he was a very likeable person, a very easygoing guy. It's very sad.
Maybe you can write a song dedicated to him on the next album.
We have dedicated the whole new album to him and we dedicated to him one song as well. It's called "Farewell" and it's an instrumental song. It was written and recorded before he died but the feel of that song fitted so well so we thought that it would be a nice way to honour his memory. It's very hard to listen to that song because it brings back memories. It's very emotional to play that song too but also in a good way. Every time we play that song we think about him and I think that's a nice tribute to him.