Interview
(Progressive Newsletter Nr.49 08/04)
excerpts from an interview with Johann Hedman (Drums)
The original concept of the group was to merge guitar based Thrash Metal and keyboard based Progressive Rock, sort of like Metallica meets Voivod but with a lot of Tony Banks-like keyboardwork. We then heard Dream Theater and felt that they played a style a bit similar to what we were doing at the time. We felt a change was necessary, since we don´t want Violent Silence to sound like anything else. Like I´ve said earlier Hannes is actually a good lead guitarist, but as you can hear on the record he is also very accomplished on the keyboards. It´s more of a case of what the songs need. We have gradually written more and more songs on which we have felt that the presence of a guitar would have felt awkward, too ordinary, or plain unnecessary. But who knows what will happen in the future, maybe we will get interested in incorporating guitars again. There are no rules in this band, except when it comes to trying to avoid writing something we feel is forced, unoriginal or not up to standard.
Even though you don’t play epic tracks with length over 10 or more minutes, you put a lot of time changes and different atmospheres into your songs. Do you try to focus your ideas in shorter songs or did this just happen accidentally?
Again it´s more a question of what the songs need and what feels natural in any given compositional context. If we thought a piece of music would improve by drawing it out to over ten minutes we would without hesitation. When we began writing "Grey Fluid Earth" for example it was apparent right from the start that it needed a longer structure. But there has to be a point in doing it - we don´t want to write long songs just for the sake of it, a watch will never be a part of our writing process in any way. Although for the epic lovers reading this, I can tell you that you just might find one or three nuggets on our next CD, depending on which kind of material we decide to record for our next release.
For that you and keyboarder Hannes Ljunghall compose all the music, do you start mainly with a rhythm or a melody and how do the ideas evolve into songs?
We both have quite different approaches to writing. Hannes is a much more prolific composer than I am and he usually comes in with very elaborate one or two minute snippets of music. He has literally hundreds of these little snippets, and a single one can contain material that can be used in several compositions. I have more of a jam mentality myself and usually write a drum / guitar / piano riff or section which I have a basic arrangement idea for, and then we both add to it. What we then do is try to piece two or more ideas together and make them work as longer and more fully structured compositions. The best example of that on the album is "War Ant", which is made up of three different pieces in several different moods and time signatures that worked extremely well when we added them together. Other songs, such as "Squeal Point", "Tunnel Vision" and "Grey Fluid Earth" are basically just us playing around with one or two different motifs and trying to see where they go. To answer your other question though: a rhythm track drums / bass or keyboards,a basic song / arrangement idea, or a chord sequence almost always comes first when writing the songs.
How difficult was it to get a record contract with Record Heaven / Musea?
The original thought was to release the album ourselves. The only labels we sent the CD to was Record Heaven and Mellotronen which were the only two labels in Sweden - known to us at the time - that released slightly unusual music. Stefan Dimle at Mellotronen really liked it and was very encouraging, but as Mellotronen nowadays only re-releases old stuff he had to decline. In fact he personally went out of his way and contacted Angular Records(which is a division of Musea Records) only to make them release us, that´s why we thank him on the album. Record Heaven on the other hand was completely silent for two months, so we thought they weren´t interested. Then out of the blue Hannes gets a message on his answering machine from Johnny at Record Heaven, who was absolutely raving about our album and you could hear Squeal Point playing in the background. We got in touch with him and that was it, or so we thought. Next thing we learn is that Record Heaven is in the midst of a tumultous change of management, with Johnny in the end luckily being the new boss. Unluckily for us, the release of the album was delayed almost two whole years. When it finally was released late last year it was with no promotion of any kind here in Sweden, apart from the bands´ few personal copies which have all been used up now. All I want to say is that we are extremely grateful to Musea Records who are the sole reason anyone has heard of this record, let alone heard it. Having said that, I want to plead to the people out there to support the ”new” Record Heaven because new boss Johnny is a very friendly and professional guy and has been very supportive.
How was the feedback concerning your debut so far and was it what you expected?
We are a bit surprised to say the least. The record has been getting very good reviews almost everywhere. Since the album is quite different to everything else out there, we never dared hope that the reception would be this warm. The few bad reviews we´ve had on the other hand have been very vicious, which is fine - our music seems to polarize people in a pretty extreme way. Either the music is very good(for the most part) or very bad depending on everyones personal tastes. Also people have described the music as everything from odd progressive rock, to ”sophisticated” pop, to Metal without guitars(!). I can only encourage those who read this to listen to the music and then make up their own mind about us.
Do you feel comfortable with all the bands you were compared with or where do you see your main influences for your own style?
I have to confess that noone in the band is very knowledgeable about the progressive underground scene. A few of the bands we´ve been compared to we have never even heard of before so obviously I can´t say much about those. Although I´m certain they are all fine bands in their own right. Other bands like Änglagård, Landberk and Anekdoten are Swedish so we have heard of them, but apart from being Swedish ourselves I don´t really see any connection. Although good at what they do, Änglagård and Anekdoten are much more of a retro thing than we are, and Landberk are more of an early nineties moody guitarrock thing. Obviously we know the more well-known names that we´ve been compared with, such as Frank Zappa, King Crimson, The Mars Volta, Mr Bungle, The Police and Yes, which we all think are great. Though comparing us to for example King Crimson or Mr Bungle is to me a bit like comparing either of them to each other, or in turn to The Mars Volta or Frank Zappa or anyone else. There might be a vague connection there but it´s so subtle you wouldn´t really recognize it even if you listened hard. To us, Violent Silence has a personality of its own and we all want it to stay that way. Personally I listen to almost every single kind of music there is and If I were to pick my personal favourite rock bands it would probably be what I listened to as a kid: Black Sabbath, Genesis, Metallica, The Beatles, Mercyful Fate, Voivod, Steel Pulse, Marillion, Iron Maiden, Depeche Mode, Slayer, The Cure and Pink Floyd to name a few. My classical favourite above all is Stravinskij. The other guys in the band would probably say something else, although Hannes would probably primarily mention Frank Zappa. We just do our own thing, and other bands hopefully do theirs.
Kristian Selm © Progressive Newsletter 2004