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Pain Of Salvation
So there you know that I’m quite impressed by the works of this Swedish quartet. Founded under the name of ‘Reality’ way back in the eighties, this band has had some difficulties on their way in achieving respect for their musical creativity. Their first album ‘Entropia’ was only released in Japan for a long time and also their second album ‘One Hour By The Concrete Lake’ wasn’t available immediately in Europe. Labels like Shrapnel and magazines in Japan tried to commercialize the sound of the band, but luckily the band knows better and didn’t bend over. Then, finally the quality-label Inside Out got awake and distinguished the originality of the progmetal from Pain Of Salvation (PoS). Especially the enormous talents of founding member and heart of the band: leadsinger/guitarplayer/lyric-writer Daniel Gildenlöw is remarkable. Every album resulted in a very complex concept-album about stories that matters and discusses the problems between social, emotional, scientific and environmental issues. The songs itself have an extraordinary mix between really emotional, fragile moments and extremely heavy parts… and everything in-between. All made with a exceptional good feeling for melody and songwriting.
Where the first album was something of a raw, nineties version of the first EP of Queensryche (listen to Daniel’s high, desperate sounded screams), the second album was already hard to compare with anything. And the little bit ‘stiff sound’ on that album was shaped off with the very atmospheric ‘The Perfect Element, part 1’ from October 2000. Technical perfection meets emotional depth in very well written songs.
Text: Evil Dr. Smith
Now, 3 weeks after their show in Amsterdam with the headlining Dream Theater, I had the honor to speak with Daniel about his latest achievement: the new and highly acclaimed ‘Remedy Lane’. Daniel popped out to be a very pleasant and intelligent speaker. I had only two problems. First: the recording of the interview was of unlistenable bad quality (so the quotes from Daniel aren’t exactly literally spoken, but more excerpts of what he said to me). And second: the time-limit of the interview. And I forgot that tiny little aspect. And after all kinds of stories and discussions about touring I finally wanted to ask him about the real thing that matters: his new album. But at that moment my time was already there to end our chat: next one please!
So unfortunately no ‘inner view’ about their new album which have really rave reviews in any magazine or e-zine as you can see. Except in our Lords Of Metal. There’s not even a review yet! But for the reason why you can read it here below.
So how was the tour with Dream Theater? Because of the ‘special show’ of Dream Theater on the last tourday in Barcelona you had a day off?
We’re now back home in Sweden, but it was really great touring with these guys. Yeah, really different with our tours with Threshold and Arena the last couple of years. A complete different of level of touring. The only same things was probably that we traveled by bus and played music. And the last show of Dream Theater was kinda special. They played 2 shows. First their normal show and after a break they played the complete ‘Master Of Puppets’-album! Was also the first time this tour I could see the band perform from the beginning to the end.
I saw you guys recently performing in the Music Hall in Amsterdam. But you guys started too early! I guess a lot of people missed the show.
Yeah, I know. But that’s up to Dream Theater and the venue.
So you’re nothing but a bunch of marionettes doing exactly what you’ve been told?
Hehe, unfortunately. And normally, we only play for about 30 minutes, but we had that day an extra 15 minutes from Dream Theater. That was very kind. Only, we had to start earlier than it was written on the tickets.
And the sound that evening: it wasn’t perfect.
Well, we do have an sound-engineer. Only, I’ve heard they had to change some things in the PA-system on one or two show of this tour and maybe that’s the reason why the sound wasn’t perfect. I can’t remember which show or shows it were, but it could have been in Amsterdam.
The merchandising was extremely expensive! T-shirts costed 30 or 40 Euro. And it was 80 Euro for a hoody: ridiculous!!
I can say it was up to 90 in some places. Yeah, I don’t know who buys them for such prices. Either they’re rich or else should have been rich.
Or fucking nuts.
They should be that as well. Even if it was handmade by Mother Theresa itself I won’t buy anything for that price. I will buy a car for that price! But we have to sell the items in the same category as Dream Theater did. We payed for our shirts I thought something like 13 Euro, so if it was up to us, we could sell our shirts for about 18 Euro. But now our shirt were sold for 25 or up to 30 Euro. And at some venues even more than that…
So it’s the influence of Dream Theater’s hunger for money? It’ll be a very tragic conclusion.
There’s some kind of unwritten rule in merchandise-land which I don’t understand. And you have to deal with all kind of taxes which varies a lot over the different countries and sometimes is even up to 30 percent of your sales. And merchandisers have to payed as well. And so in the end, sometimes even the guy who’s selling our T-shirts will actually earn more money than we do. And in America they’re probably used to having that kind of prices for merchandising. I’ve heard from Mike that the prices over there are still a bit higher than here in Europe.
Enuff said about expensive things. Is ‘Tuflus’ found? (Their mascot - a fabric made lion - for already 7 years, but after the show in Amsterdam strangely disappeared).
Yes, it was kidnapped by the crew: they don’t respect the feelings of soft animals. Typical crude men…;-)
I saw you for the first time with Arena. That show in Paradiso was recorded by Arena and released on a double-CD (‘Breakfast In Biarritz’). Wasn’t your show recorded in the same time? Shouldn’t be any problem, all the gear was already there.
Nope, it was their equipment. And first of all: I never really liked live albums. I think you have to see a band live, and that vibe will never be captured on disc. Yeah, exactly: it’s more of a souvenir. For the rest, it’s an easy way for record companies to earn money. But on the other hand, I’m aware that a lot of people aren’t able to see us playing live. So for those people it should be something to do for. So for now we aren’t really thinking about a live album, but if we do: it has to be something special. About special, different versions from songs or so. So who knows, maybe, in the future?
The second time I saw you was as the special guest of the Transatlantic-tour. (Transatlic is the band from Neal Morse (Spock’s Beard), Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), Steve Trawalas (Marillion) and Roine Stolt (Flower Kings)). That was a big surprise for me!
Yeah, that was a interesting experience for me. For once, it wasn’t me standing in the spotlights like it always is with Pain Of Salvation. Now I got a look how it was at the ‘other side’: standing in the background, doing your job and that’s ‘just’ playing. How it happened? Well, I heard by a friend of them that they were looking for a guy who was able and interested to perform as some kinda fifth band-member: doing back-up vocals, some percussion and second guitarwork. At that time, I was in the middle of the recordings for ‘Remedy Lane’, but it was a big challenge for me to join them. The only problem was that I heard that only 2 weeks before the actual tour started. The Transatlantic guys themselves had to practice the songs for about a month before the tour started, but when I finally started rehearsing the songs it was only 3 days before the first gig! And it was not the high-technical complexity of the songs of Transatlantic, but more the difficulty of remembering exactly which part follows another part. No really, it’s not that difficult to play, only songs of 30 minutes are hard to remember how exactly the riffs and melodies follows each other. But I managed.
You don’t need a month: you’re still young and fresh of mind!
Hehe, I will tell that the guys the next time!
And when you looked at these guys: did you feel some connection in the way they perform?
I say Mike, when it comes to organize things, doing the production and being the ‘workaholic’ of the band. That’s something that resembles like me. And I’m probably more like Roine when it comes my relation with music. I share his artistic points of view.
But how long do we have to wait until you guys will FI-NAL-LY have its own tour?? I know several guys who preferred watching you guys instead of the headlining Dream Theater!
Well, we really have to think about doing a headline tour. It depends of what ‘Remedy Lane’ will do. The prospects are good, because the album already sold more than ‘The Perfect Element”, and that in only 2 weeks. But still, I hear these question several times of people who contact us. They tell that all their friends in their country just love us and that we should definitely play there. Making big money. But when we see how many albums are sold in that country, it’s like 500 copies or so. The picture that people are holding to us can be really misleading. They’re just like a very small community, and all of your friends are into Pain Of Salvation or whatever band it might be, so it feels like everyone you know are into the same band and therefore you might think that the rest of the country does the same. But that’s not.
No, those people are still listening to Jennifer Lopez.
So if we do a headline-tour with Jennifer…?!?!
But how’s the popularity of PoS by now? Just 5 years ago only Japan seemed interested in a bunch of Swedish progmetal-kids, but is finally the rest of the world already awake? Can you make a living out of it?
We’re just on the verge of doing that. Much of that comes from the fact that we’re still waiting for the profits and royalties of our earlier records. I still haven’t received everything from the ‘Entropia’-album. The money has to go to a lot of different places when it actually arrives. A lot of people have interest in the albums, like for instance we’ve made a lot of costs in the production. And unfortunately you can’t say as a musician “Well, I’ll have to cover my expenses, then you can have your share”, which will be the best way of course! But the most of the profits we make is in the merchandising.
(Well, no wonder with these prices!)
On to your new album: Remedy Lane. I don’t have it yet. I’ve read somewhere that there is or was an idea for a limited double-CD release, just like ‘The Perfect Element, part 1’. So I’m waiting for that version.
Well, I have to tell you that we don’t know what we’ll do yet. The thing is, they (Inside Out, I suppose? E.D.S.) wanted us to make a limited edition. But the simple thing is that we didn’t have enough material that was good for putting on an extra disc. With ‘The Perfect Element’ we’ve made a lot of work in putting all kinds of video’s, interviews and rare or non-released songs together, but we don’t have much of that now. And we wouldn’t make a so-and-so limited edition: because people will buy it, because it’s a limited edition. And I think it should be worth the money.
So we’re still open for it, but it depends of what the future will bring us and if the record company will still be interested by then. So I can’t promise anything.
So maybe when there’s enough material collected for an extra disc, ‘The Perfect Element part 2’ is already there, so that shall be the one with a limited double CD-release. Hopefully, but we still don’t know exactly how ‘Part 2’ will sound like. Much is not done yet.
At this moment, I wanted to bother Daniel with all kinds of questions about his new album, but at that moment he reminds me that we were running out of time already. And I was only starting! So therefore, I only had time to ask him quickly the most important questions I really wanted to know
Well, not really me who wanted to know this, but a girlfriend of mine. Are you still single?
No, I’m married.
She’ll be very jealous hearing that!
Oh, that’s really flattering! I can say that I could act I’m single?
Hehe, I don’t think she buys that! Something else: you’re playing the character ‘TwinSpirit n.32’ in the rock-opera trilogy called ‘Genius’. With quite successful people like Mark Boals (Yngwie), John Wetton (UK, Wishbone Ash) and Steve Walsh (Kansas).
It’s an Italian project made by a guy named Daniel Verotti (hope I spelled his name right? EDS) and he simply asked me to do a character. I haven’t heard the result yet, but it’s more progmetal than Pain Of Salvation is. No, I haven’t met those guys: all was recorded on distance. I didn’t have the time going anywhere.
My last cliche, then you’re rid of me: 3 of your favorite albums?
Jesus Christ Superstar: my ideal version will be a mixture by the original version and the soundtrack-version: the voice of Ian Gillan and the emotional performance of Ted Neely)
Dive – ‘Where the river turns to sea’
(Swedish band)
Faith No More – Album Of The Year
Thanks Daniel for talking to you and see you on a headline tour!!
Thanks for the support we definitely come back! The girlfriend of my brother, bassplayer Kristoffer, lives in Amsterdam, so we have to come back!
And for more information about the (older) album(s), the lyrics, the analysis, the touring, a pile of interviews and almost anything else that deals with Pain Of Salvation, you can find it on their brilliantly made site: www.painofsalvation.com, or when you’re an Italian, try their brand-new fansite on www.painofsalvation.it.
http://www.painofsalvation.com
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