Dark Tranquillity – Mikael Stanne, Vocals

Mikael Stanne of the legendary Dark Tranquillity chats about the evolution of a metal band, file sharing, and an onomastic conspiracy theory involving Opeth.

Hi Mikael, thanks for taking this time to talk with me.

Hey, my pleasure man.

The new album of course, Fiction, comes out April 17th in the states. Describe the album to me in 3 words.

3 words? Man… I’ll have to go… Emotional, diverse, and angry.

Ok, now you can give me a longer description! Where is Dark Tranquillity’s evolution going to this time? How do you think Fiction compares to your last release, Character?

I think compared to Character it’s definitely – we focused more on the individual songs this time rather than just trying to fit so much stuff into every single song. We decided to kind of take a little step back and be more objective about what we did and make sure the songs really stood out from each other and have their own individuality. There’s all kinds of different songs on there: there’s some really fucking fast stuff, some really mellow, more emotional kind of stuff… there’s a lot of stuff going on but not all at once. That was the biggest difference I think.

So you really separated all the elements into their own individual –

We brought some things in that we haven’t done in many, many years and stuff like that. We decided, “Let’s just see what happens, let’s be really open-minded about writing this album and try something a bit different”. It felt really good, it was a great creative time for us to write this album.

I remember a statement from you last year that the album is so diverse and different that it’s hard to find a suitable title for the whole thing. What does Fiction mean exactly, and how does it relate to the whole motif and theme of the album?

If there is a motif or a theme I would say that it’s- it’s what we create, we create something fictional, create something out of nothing. From our every day lives we create something new and it’s not only about us… lyrically I’d say it’s about needing something else in your life, you know, reality is not good enough. Rather than escaping from the tedious lifestyle or whatever you add something to it and you create something for yourself. You write stories or something –

Music, maybe?

Yeah, it could be whatever. Lyrics, something that adds to your life rather than takes away from it you know.

You have two bonus tracks for Japan and Australia: “A Closer End” and the instrumental “Winter Triangle” respectively. This more of a general metal release question but how come Japan and Australia get all the extras?

I guess it’s that they don’t want all the imports from Europe and America in Japan; it’s cheaper for them so they want to create something special for them.

A little extra incentive perhaps?

Yeah, and for Australia I guess we had these two instrumental tracks and we said hey, we can do it from Australia. We were just down there and they asked us if we could do something special for their release. “A Closer End” is actually one of my favorites so you’re all definitely missing out!

So Fiction, as with most music releases these days in general, can be found on the internet in MP3 format despite the fact that the release is still about a month away. What are your thoughts on the whole file-sharing and leaked album phenomenon?

It’s a sad thing. I mean it kind of takes away from the excitement in a way and I would rather have everyone listen to it at the same time, you know? It kind of spoils the surprise… but what can I say, I mean I download albums at well just because I can’t help myself! I get curious and I download new stuff…

You’re waiting for a certain release for so long…

And I know it’s right there, you know? Instead of going to the record store and picking out albums and listening to them and buying the good ones, you can download a couple songs here and there and if it’s good enough you go out and buy it, you know? It’s as simple as that. And obviously in metal, like metal fans know that you need to support the bands in order for them to go on tour and things like that.

Even moreso than with a lot of genres because metal’s not that popular.

Exactly, and if you look at record sales in general, other genres are suffering much more than the metal genre. Metal has gone down like 10% and most other genres are going down like 50-60%…

Most loyal fans?

Exactly.

I spoke of evolution just now: Dark Tranquillity is definitely a band that has a very eclectic discography. The style of music has changed over the course of your career. How do you go about writing a new album and deciding what it’s going to sound like?

We don’t really decide that much in advance, you know, we don’t go like, this album should be like this or that so… We have a general idea and we decide on a different perspective and a different starting point. Like for this album, we said let’s not overdo it, let’s make sure every song is great and if someone feels like we need to do something different that’s what we do as well so we don’t have to be as close-minded as we were in the past.

So you don’t go in with any sort of plan or anything, you just go with what happens?

Yeah, not too much of a plan no. Just whatever feels right is right.

DT is often credited with essentially starting or at the very least being the pioneers of the Gothenburg scene. Many of the bands that were there with you early on, like In Flames, have altered their sound to be more mainstream and are approaching a modern rock style rather than melodic death metal. Is this a jump you see Dark Tranquillity taking in the future? What are your thoughts on those changes in general?

All bands change and that’s cool you know. The Haunted is mostly Gothenburg based.. all bands are just different you know. No, I don’t see our band changing that much.. we will evolve, we will do all kinds of different things but only if it’s really right and it’s ours to decide. Not the record label or the audience or whatever.

Every band needs to find their own way?

Yeah, and I think we pretty much have found our own way.

So, 17 years… that’s quite a long time to be making music! Has it gotten tired? Or are we still going to see several new albums beyond this point?

I think we got a few more albums in us! That’s for sure. It’s still a lot of fun and I believe that we’re still looking for that perfect album obviously and I think this is as close as we get this time… honestly I think this new album is the best we’ve ever done. If I didn’t feel that then it wouldn’t work, and it wouldn’t feel right to continue. But we’re all really proud and happy about what we’re doing right now. It feels better than ever.

If you had to guess, how many shows would you say Dark Tranquillity has played?

I think you can actually look that up on our webpage, all the tours are on there. But really I don’t know… is it a thousand? 6-700 perhaps?

One interesting thing to note is that despite how long DT has been in the music scene, there has been relatively little member turnover. Are you all very happy working together then? Is there a real sense of family within the band?

Oh absolutely. I mean we pretty much grew up together. It’s something that we’ve been doing more than half our lives together so we definitely feel a great bond to each other and hanging out, writing music together, creating and traveling and all that so it’s just really, really natural, you know? We lived on the same street when we were kids and we just formed a band together, and it’s as simple as that.

What sort of advice would you give to struggling young metal bands out there fighting to make it?

Well, don’t try too hard, rehearse a lot… A LOT. Take your time, you know? You need time to find your own identity as a band. Learn your instruments, and just wait. It’s not necessary to just release albums and go on tours you know what I mean, you can do that when you have something to be proud of. A lot of bands are in a hurry to release stuff and get out in the scene or whatever but if you take your time you’ll come up with something better and maybe you’ll be happier for that.

Let’s move on to the Metal for the Masses tour. This is a very nice mostly-Swedish treat! What are your thoughts on the lineup?

It’s great, I mean, I love Scar Symmetry. Into Eternity are really fucking cool, The Haunted is one of my all-time favorite bands… I would pay a lot of money to go see this kind of show!

Sweden is certainly a country rich with metal. What’s your favorite metal band from Sweden, excluding any band on this tour?

Excluding… Um… Oh, probably Naglfar right now, I think they’re one of my favorites. Then Soilwork I think are fantastic… really though Scar Symmetry and The Haunted are some of my favorites.

So a good tour for you huh?

Indeed!

And what are you listening to at the moment? Who have you been really blown away by recently?

Not that much actually, I’ve been listening to a lot of old kind of music I guess. Probably something totally non-metal like Anthony and the Johnsons or something like that really kind of grab me. Probably the best metal album I’ve heard in a couple of years, Impressions in Blood by Vader, they’re one of the greatest bands I think.

Helleluyah?

It’s fantastic, I love that stuff.

Most American metal bands seem to point to the thrash metal scene as their prime influence growing up: what were your influences? What really made you want to be a vocalist for a metal band?

Well, originally I was a guitar player so a lot of our influences came from thrash as well, but mostly speed metal and power metal since we really got into the melodic side from that kind of music. Early 80’s German bands like Helloween or Blind Guardian you know, so they were really influential to us. And also, German thrash like Destruction and Kreator and a lot of the Bay Area thrash say Vio-lence and Testament. As soon as I heard Kreator and Sabbat I realized I wanted to be a singer you know? I wanted to sound that cool!

So you liked that change from guitarist to vocalist? Well obviously since you’re still a vocalist after so long!

Haha, I was a crappy guitar player so I couldn’t wait to throw my guitar away and start singing!

Looking back over your vast career, what is your very favorite Dark Tranquillity song? Let’s say you had a gun to your head and absolutely had to choose!

It’d probably be the one that we play the most I think, “Punish My Heaven” from The Gallery, I still love that song.

That’s my favorite as well, actually.

Well there you go! I like it a lot: it’s a diverse song and I think it’s really fucking good.

The follow-up: What’s your least favorite?

Least favorite…

Demos don’t count!

Haha! We were talking about this yesterday actually. “Midway Through Infinity” from The Gallery, I think it’s a pretty crap song. Nah, it’s not crap, but I didn’t really like it, it didn’t turn out that well. Probably a song or two from Haven I don’t really dig but other than that I’m pretty proud of what we’ve done.

I couldn’t help but notice you have two people in your lineup with the first name Martin. My name is also Martin. How did you manage to get great talent with such a great name to boot? Don’t you wish your name was Martin too?

Haha, I’m pretty happy with my name! We do have another Mikael as well, but it is Martin H. and Martin B. and maybe that’s the reason they’re the most important songwriters in the band so far so maybe there’s something in that name?

Is it a coincidence that Opeth also have two Martin’s and a Mikael in their lineup? What’s the conspiracy there?

Secret of our success! Simple as that.

Interview by Martin Parets

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