Henrik Ohlsson (Scar Symmetry)
May 2008
Your first album surprised the metal community because no one expected a newcomer band coming out with an album that is an instant success. Was it something you ever hoped for?
No, we didn't expect anything when we recorded the first album. Scar Symmetry at that point was more like one of many projects that we were doing. We had this opportunity to record a an album quickly so we didn't really think about stuff like that. We just did the album and we were lucky enough to come out with a music that people were basically waiting for. (Laughs) We were in kind of a different situation when were about to record the second album because we were already signed by Nuclear Blast and they were sort of expecting the album to be really good so we felt more pressure at that time. (Laughs)
How much did the switch to Nuclear Blast helped your promotion and sales?
The whole situation changed very much when the second album came out because the promotion was lot bigger and we had the opportunity to go on tour for the first time and all these things started happening when we found our way to Nuclear Blast and that was something that none of us have been experiencing with any bands before. They helped us a lot, definitely.
I remember that Nuclear Blast was so enthusiastic about your previous album. Do they still have the same attitude towards the band?
Yeah, I think so. You can never tell because the album isn't out yet but definitely feel that we have a lot of support from Nuclear Blast. I think it's really important to be among the top priorities of a big label like that because otherwise you're sort of disappearing to the huge catalogue. (Laughs) We still feel that we're in a good position and we have a great contact with them as well.
You skipped 2007 as far as releasing an album. What did you spend your time with last year?
We toured a lot in 2007. The whole touring process started in 2006 with two long European tours. Then we went to America in 2007 where we did two long tours as well. We were actually ready to record the third album earlier but Nuclear Blast wanted us to tour more for Pitch Black Progress so we did that. Nuclear Blast wanted us to get to the studio in September last year but we couldn't do that because we accepted another tour in the States.
I think it was a wise decision because as long as you are on tour you are spreading the word and making new fans...
Yeah. We really didn't do that before that's why there's only one year between the first two albums. We did no more than 3-4 shows between those albums. (Laughs) This is totally different because you have to look for some time to sit down and gather some material and start recording. The whole recording process is pretty long, you spend 2-3 months in the studio.
Did you have a good time in America? How much does it differ from Europe as far as the fans, the venues and all that?
Yeah, it's pretty different, they don't really have showers at the places so you can only shower like once a week. (Laughs) The venues are more like old theatres and clubs that are basically the same like in Europe. But the whole country is really different. There's a huge cultural difference. It's like coming to another planet. (Laughs) We have a lot of supporters in the States and we noticed us even after the first album. We got a really good response from the crowd. It's basically the same thing in Europe but we haven't toured in Europe since 2006 so it's maybe about time to do that again.
Was the Katatonia tour the most successful you did so far?
It wasn't the biggest tour for us but we were in a better position because we weren't the opening band like on the bigger tours. There we always end up being the opening act because the other bands are too big. (Laughs) But it was different with Katatonia because we could play right before them as we had two opening acts. We had more playing time and in that regard the tour was really excellent.
Did you get along well with the other bands?
Yeah, I hope so. (Laughs) We actually knew Katatonia from before because they come from the same town as two of the members of Scar Symmetry. We were sharing the same bus and that was really cool. The opening band were from Finland and we didn't really connect that much with them apart from maybe 2-3 persons that got along with us really good.
Do you like the music of those bands?
It's maybe not something that I listen to at home. I think Katatonia is a really good band. It's hard to categorise them but they are pretty good. One of the opening bands were more like a doomz metal band and the other one is melodic death metal, I don't know what it's called. It was okay but not something I would listen to myself.
So it was kind of a weird tour package for Scar Symmetry.
Yeah, the music was heavier compared to The Haunted, Dark Tranquillity and Soilwork. It's none of that poppy stuff that we tend to do sometimes. (Laughs)
What show did you enjoy the most last year? And what was the worst one?
The best shows were the last 2-3 shows on our first US tour with Dark Tranquillity and The Haunted. Those were the best ones because we played in the House of Blues and also in Los Angeles and also in San Francisco and we had such a massive response that the whole band was basically high after the shows. (Laughs) When you get that feeling you know that you can do this forever. The worst show... I can't remember the name of the place but there had to be something in their drinking water because the crowd was totally indifferent to all the bands. They just watched looking bored from the first band to the last band and they didn't do anything. (Laughs) That's when I started wondering, "Why were they paying for the tickets?" They didn't seem to have fun.
You mentioned that you were already ready for the studio when you went on tour with Katatonia. Did you have the entire album written by then?
Jonas has been writing songs basically since we recorded Pitch Black Progress. He had a bunch of songs that half of them are forgotten already. (Laughs) And Per never really has songs until he gets the date of when we're supposed going to the studio and then he start writing songs one or two weeks before. He's a little bit crazy but that's how we work in this band normally. We really write the songs fast and were very open when we enter the studio so we can change them around a little bit. So we basically rehearse in the studio and that's how the songs take shape.
Did you record in Jonas' studio again?
Yes, we recorded it there. First it is very relaxed and we don't have to think about time limits and all that. It's just good for us to be able to record in a band member's studio and him being the producer that is doing 100% into what he's doing because it's his band.
You said on your website that you have recorded 13 tracks for the album but you left out one to avoid bad luck.
(Laughs) That wasn't necessarily true but it sounded good. (Laughs) We left one out because there were too many songs on the album and the playing time was really long. We definitely didn't need another track, it's almost too long already. I don't think you can digest any more than these 12 songs.
What are you going to do with the leftover track?
We don't really know what to do with it. It's more up to Nuclear Blast when they put together their licensed released here and there. There are always places where you have to provide a bonus track so I'm sure it'll come out somewhere sooner or later. Also there's gonna be a tin box release of the new album that will be available on the website of Nuclear Blast. I'm not completely sure about if there's anything extra on it other than the packaging but we have a lot of stuff that we could put on a special release like that. We haven't decided about that and we are in the finishing stages of completing its layout. Also we're going to record a video in the beginning of June so there's a lot of stuff going on at the same time. We just take one step at a time and hopefully we'll get there and everything will be sorted out. (Laughs)
What song are you going to shoot the video for?
That was a long discussion. At first we were thinking about Artificial Sun Projection but in the end we chose Morphogenesis. We're not completely sure what kind of a video clip we wanna make. We got the synopsis basically from the guy who is doing the video but it doesn't seem to contain animation so it will be real people doing crazy things.
Do you also plan to release this song as a single?
Yeah, that's a good question. (Laughs) The song I told you about Artificial Sun Projection was going to be the single but now that we changed the song for the video we have to see what happens.
What would be your pick for the single?
Either I would go in the most mainstream direction possible and put Timewave Zero on the single or I would go in the opposite direction and would pick Holographic Universe, which is a 9 minute song and there's a lot of complicated things in it. (Laughs)
It's very hard to come up with new things in your genre. How do you try to make it sounding different from album to album still being Scar Symmetry?
We know what our sound is like because we sort of defined our sound on the first two albums and we automatically keep the key ingredients. We want to have lots of synthesisers and clean vocals mixed with brutal vocals and it comes naturally and when you do that it sounds like Scar Symmetry as long as it's us playing. (Laughs) We don't have to think much about staying true to ourselves because that comes automatically. But we have an evolution in our sound so we're not recording the same album over and over again so we have to push ourselves and try some new stuff and not be afraid to do things that we haven't done before. So when we are in the studio we try lots of different things. There's tons of ideas that we throw in there and see if they work and stuff that work we keep and stuff that don't work we just forget about like it never happened. (Laughs)
I don't know if I'm right or wrong but Christian's voice, both clean and brutal, sound much better and more impressive than on the first two albums. Or is it only me?
No. Now that we've been touring a lot in the last two years some thing definitely happened with the whole band. We are much more sure of ourselves as musicians and as a band and of course Christian also gained a lot from performing so much, so no, I don't think that you are imagining it. (Laughs) We've been really active over the last few years and that has helped us a lot.
Do you know if Christian ever took singing lessons?
No, he has never done that. He was actually a guitarist to start with and he just started singing because no one else wanted to do it. (Laughs) He has such a talent for it. I think Jonas was helping him a lot especially during Pitch Black Progress. He was trying to push him into a classic heavy metal vocalist style. If you try to sing more towards that then you come to a state when you actually realise that you can do it. And once he felt that he could do stuff like that he just gathered momentum and came up with really awesome vocal lines. He has actually written all the vocal lines for this third album.
You're always compared to Soilwork, one of the biggest bands in this genre, even your record label says that. Does this bother you?
No, it doesn't bother us as long as people like what we do. When people use this comparison to put us down saying that we are Soilwork clones then it's a little bit unfair I think because even if we mix harsh vocals with clean vocals that doesn't mean that we are sounding exactly the same. There are other things that separate us from for example Soilwork or other bands. I think we have a different set of influences from Soilwork. But as long as they compare us in a positive way then it’s okay.
What do you think of the latest Soilwork album?
Actually we went to the house of a huge Soilwork fan in Arizona and he had the new album that hasn’t been released yet so we heard it pretty early. I think it sounded pretty good. They lost their main songwriter and I know that they band was really worried of how they were supposed to go on but I think they did a good job.
Would you like to tour with them again?
Yeah, that would be great. We were opening for them on our first tour. We talked about touring together in England but for some reason it didn’t happen. We would love to tour with them as they are a good band with a lot of experience. They always deliver live.
Are there any bands you wouldn’t mind joining touring together with?
Yes, definitely. We have all the heavy metal heroes and we would be very honoured to tour with a band like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden or Kiss, stuff that we listened to as kids, bands that led us to the path of heavy metal. (Laughs). But maybe they are too big and I don’t think they have support bands anymore. (Laughs)
So when and where can we see Scar Symmetry performing live this year?
We have some louse plans. There’s gonna be a tour in Spain in October and before that there’s a UK tour in September. Of course we do some festivals this summer. It’s kind of a different situation because we’re releasing the album right almost in the middle of the summer. We don’t really know how to organise the tour around it because there’s basically one period during the summer when you’re not supposed to be on tour and that’s exactly when we should tour because the album is coming out. It’s a little bit weird for us.
You’re website isn’t really informative, it’s not updated too often…
Yeah, we’re having some problems with the webmaster as he doesn’t update things as often as we want to, so we’re changing the webmaster right now. It’s in the process of being better. (Laughs) But we’re also on MySpace, which is a really good tool. It’s a simple way of getting in touch with all the musicians and labels out there. It’s like the tape trading of the early 90s but it’s transferred to the Internet. That’s pretty much what it is to me.
Do you keep in touch with the fans too through messages and comments?
Yeah, definitely. We’re keeping in touch with the fans and also some other bands on the scene. Most of the members in Scar Symmetry has their personal MySpace page as well so we really use this tool.