COFFEE WITH OLA - Tom Englund of EVERGREY

what's up everyone welcome to coffee with olaf finally back after like one year or one and a half years and finally back as well in uh personal format because i did a couple of coffee with ola interviews with over sum and assume sucks and uh there's you know the interaction of sitting together with someone is gone when you do it on phone true so i'm extremely happy to finally be able to do it again i mean i'm here with tom englund of evergray and uh here it is in physical format it doesn't get worse than this there's no digital version of this this is just us in a room together and uh i feel extremely nervous because this is it's been a while yeah it's good some people would also prefer the digital version i mean you know what they're gonna watch it on youtube anyway so that's pretty pretty digital yeah so i have to um i have to start with giving a little bit of history of my connection to evergreen because it starts pretty early it starts with uh me hearing nosferatu on i think it was a close-up uh collection cd back in 1999. after that i started listening to the band and you know in search of truth and uh what i remember one day i was on the which was very digital i was on a listening party for recreation day that was online really yes so you could chat there was like you could chat with the band at the same time or someone that claimed to be the band yeah i never heard of it exactly but uh and then and then a touch of blessing is what's that the album name uh what's the yes that uh me and louise and my brother went down to watch the uh the live recording a dvd recording that you had strings and all that stuff and i think thank uh andesh engberry was also singing right back then i've been playing in sorcery yeah sorcerer sorry so there's a little small i mean when you come to like the down and dirty sweden is pretty small very there's not too many musicians uh and when you're in that at least a metal it's a very you know small group of people that everyone kind of knows each other so with that said i'm gonna say i'm i'm a fan of evergreen thank you thank you let's talk about you and where the influences come from because i can hear where the influences are from dire straits no that's not that's not my guess no i i didn't think so but that's that's how i started playing guitar oh really okay but yeah go ahead okay so no i i thought it was uh uh progressive mel like in dream theater probably yeah i would say dream table was the reason for us starting but at the same time quite quickly figured out that we couldn't play like them at all of course and i was like we might want to steer this elsewhere okay uh so that's what we did and that's why we sound like we did today but i mean one could say that dream theater is is was a big and the sole purpose for us starting to play that type of music there weren't really that many bands during that like in the 90s that sounded like dream theater there weren't too many like no one no progressive metal bands i mean if you call queen's rush uh that's closest can't beat it but other than that it wasn't anyone like you i i i hadn't heard of any and i mean i know that when i heard pulled me under for the first time i never heard anything like that production production-wise playing-wise i mean i was amazed so yeah of course that was a huge inspiration to get started and trying to aim for something bigger than i'm james a singer too everything yeah i loved james back in the day and i mean we had him on our last album now and i mean that was such a closing the circle moment for me personally to write melodies for him because i know his melodies are like the back of my hand yes so uh yeah i mean amazing to hear that yeah you know my words his voice that's a fact and he's such a nice funny dude as well you know when we we toured together i mean he's a lovely lovely lovely guy and now they are kind of like the godfathers of progressive mel for sure which they weren't back in the day i mean it's it's fun to be i started listening to green theater like in 96 97 and um i mean they felt new then and then a lot of other bands popped up just like you guys and also symphony x and uh like in the same i would call the same genre but i think evergreens one of the few first progressive metal bands that really found their their own sound while still being progressive metal and uh so i think you guys were pioneering a little bit and i want this not meant to call you old but you're kind of but it's the goddamn truth you're like old legends but you're also becoming like a little bit of a godfather type of band in my opinion yeah well that i mean that's just great in a sense and at the same time it's so weird for us for because there's no difference for me doing this now or doing it when i was 21 yes and as a matter of fact our biggest commercial success was the last album so it's like our peak is like very hardly noticeable but it's going upwards so do you think that's because of uh of other newer modern progressive metal bands that you kind of you know also grow with them like how is it i mean you've been releasing albums since the 90s in this genre which is a pretty niche genre but like this year griefer won a grammy yes and that must help the whole genre in general i hope so i mean i and i mean it was about time yeah it really did they really deserve it and now we have a grammy winning singer on our album which is yes exactly so solely for that purpose yeah i mean what i'm saying is that being a progressive melbourne is not making it easy for yourself to have the progressive label i mean on your like a sticker on your cd was not uh was not a selling point no it was rather the opposite did you try and remove that i mean we to be honest we never even considered ourselves being that progressive because as i said when we discovered we couldn't play like that we're like oh it let's do something else and uh then i would say like a melodic metal band with progressive influence elements yeah whatever yeah so but yes i mean i listened to symphony x and i listened to a lot of progressive bands but not like joe and the bass player of us i mean it's like a progressive nerd i would say i mean all the way back to genesis and all those type of bands i liking floyd for instance a lot but yeah so i don't know uh it didn't help us back in the day nowadays we get a lot of props for for sticking with our guns in a sense you know so being yeah exactly so you guys do you feel like it's paid off or that i mean okay okay but it's a good question actually because in terms of we're we're still here we're more relevant than ever yes we're still doing what we always done so now it pays off in a in a in a big way for me yes for us uh for all of us and in different ways too but uh yes did you ever feel that oh maybe we should do something to you know make it go quicker like because we know what what would make a band bigger sure no we never switch music a little bit i mean we have had guests on our albums of course that that was our sort of aim to bring in more people okay via them like floor from nightwish right andre la rock from king diamond yes matthias from kitchener and so forth um but other than that and james library uh other than that we we wouldn't sort of stray from the our main idea of our sound just because of trying to get more listeners yes i mean then we should have started with screams we started with melodic singing when in a time where everybody was i came from a death metal background so um to sing then was it was weird for people yeah and new metal was a thing also yeah at that time yeah and people were angry yes exactly and i was just sad and miserable yeah exactly so um tell us about the uh you have a new album coming this year too you released an album last year you have a new album coming this year heartless portrait and how is it that you can release an album almost within a year it is within a year yeah that's a lot of work yeah i mean actually i think the first single came out before yes it was even a year yeah i mean it is a lot of work at the same time it's what we do yeah everybody else goes to work you know eight hours per day yeah uh if we did that we would release four albums per year yeah but uh usually we we're touring right so that's why we're so used to having an album every other year or every third year so because of the situation you might as well just sit right yeah and we are i mean i think it was actually the day after escape of the phoenix came out we we had a band meeting because we figured out we couldn't be touring him yeah we couldn't be touring at all so we said okay let's see if we still have it in us to write more and then we went back to our writing dance and and and started you know around with our own personal ideas and then met up again six weeks later and we had like 50 song ideas so so i guess yes uh it's just great it's very impressive i i must say i mean i think a lot of bands they probably waited a little bit some people took the opportunity of riding but i think a lot of balance also waited it's because and some people just enjoyed being doing nothing yeah exactly just taking the the because we're off we're never off right so yeah i mean it's like driving your own business you're never you're never on vacation right so exactly so i think uh a few of our friends the more fortunate ones that they had a long vacation and didn't record albums yeah no names mentioned but now i mean i felt let's see what happened now what happens now if if i just keep on writing and i figured out a thing i figured out how my brain works now because all of our you know all of us who write music we are afraid of getting this writer's block right yes so so i was just waiting for that because i was released two silent skies albums and a bunch of a redemption album we recorded too and lots of stuff and i i just figured out the more i write the more inspired i get okay so it's like i gotta talk to some neuropsychological person like a neurosurgeon or something would be cool to sort of measure that to see if you're an area in your baby it's getting active it's getting bigger by being inspired i actually think that's the case to be honest so taking vacation would be a problem yes interesting in that aspect in many other aspects a very good thing it's a good point because uh there was just to give a little example of my own experiences that like a couple years back i didn't write anything for a year but then i decided to make these sunday with olas that happened every sunday and i had to write something for them and just as you said just because you know you have to write something i needed that push at least to that i have to write something and at least you write something it's like maybe the best you've ever written it's just good to get out of your system and then there's always like oh there's this one riff that at least works and you know it's it like you said it's just and then it keeps on going and you write a lot of and that's a bit i mean that's a big lesson for people who are young and inspiring artists that go to work write every day there is music that you're gonna have to write to get to the music that you will put on an album and and uh that's what i figured out very late in the game you know like maybe after 10 albums i was like aha there is instead of you know having this pano we need to use this riff yes no it yeah let's not use it at all yes i i remember an old quote from dimebag that his father told him uh when he was in a rut he said well what if you write one riff a day right just one riff a day yeah and you know it doesn't seem too much of uh trouble do you write yeah how many riffs do you have at the end of the year yeah and when you if you get to that one rift that day yeah usually you get three or four exactly you know because then you get to the songwriting so i've been checking out the uh the videos of the singles you released uh we you have saved us and just now recently blindfolded excellent singles there is uh there's a red line a little bit in these videos that i've seen that you guys are blindfolded a lot what what is the whole concept of this whole if there is a concept about this whole album can you tell us a little bit about i would say that these three songs share a story about this actual sort of video trilogy idea came after the album was done so it's not something that we figured out that let's do a video of three yeah but when we had a chance to we just said okay let's just link them together i mean basically the storyline is about us being lost in a world that is getting more vile and hostile and right egotistic and and and and you know i'm i'm feeling like i don't want to belong in this world anymore i feel like i want to sort of distance myself from and the same day we released save us russia went into ukraine yes it was like yeah this is exactly it but i mean it's a it's about how we have sort of lost our moral values of what it is to be a human being yes and uh that's it so being blind is symbolism for how we run through life blindfolded and aiming for we don't even know what it is oh i think we're going this way but then 10 people over here says let's go left right okay you know we're like cheap you know yeah sheep not cheap cattle yes even so yeah cattle yeah so it's very deep i have one question how do you keep on writing choruses that are catchy after so many years i mean you have so many albums like how is it do you feel that it's uh you're running out of ideas and that says because i mean they're all so cute opposite the opposite the more again the more i right now it's like it's uh yeah i mean and i it's not like i sit there and pat my bag right now you're right i wrote a great chorus but uh no i'm happy with the music we have released since day one so nosferatu that you mentioned that was the first chorus i remembered that i felt this is really something i felt he was like damn and then i i remember remember a song called the master plan as well oh yeah yeah so it's like it's a few of those songs yeah but i don't know i don't know i i just put a lot of time and effort into writing top line whatever made you feel like okay this is like now we're getting this is the band this is the band right now i mean this is the band it's it's what we are now yes i think but like when you felt like okay it was a solitude dominant strategy because we brought in these cello elements and you know the first album is great uh dark discovery yeah i mean i i wouldn't say that the music is amazing for for me personally but it was great to have the experience of releasing uh debut album you know you're just happy about that yes but then you get to the second album and i experienced this with the silent skies now as well that you it's you know you get focus yeah you get it more focused and and uh this is how we're gonna sound somehow so it's a good way to get it out of the system and then you can concentrate on what worked what did not work and so on and so forth yeah that's cool album gets released uh very soon 20th of may and uh good luck with that i'm gonna go to the gig you have uh brought a bunch of guitars yes i want you to talk about them because they're beautiful guitars here's a brown guitar yes but this is also one of my i mean let's talk about how i view guitar playing first of all because this very much sets the foundation for how i view guitars yes i worked in a music store for 10 years where i played sort of every guitar in the world basically i heard heavens on fire 8 000 times per day for 10 years so i hate that song but guitars i love guitars and i love guitar playing but first and foremost they are a tool for me to write a song right and then you need great instruments and uh i i remember i got a hondo guitar flying v that was my first guitar you can't even sit with the damn thing it was like and the string height was like this yes you know like oh so but now i've been lucky to work with cap harrison for 20 years now i think uh so i brought a few of the guitars that we that we write that we wrote the last five albums on so this is uh dellinger prominence uh maple neck that's all i know about it all of them have their comparison yeah microphones yep pickups but the is is that a split i'm seeing that you have a heart rail and a neck pickup a single neck yeah so do you run them together or you split them basically it's just basically like a it would be three pickups yeah exactly it's a position down the neck and it sounds amazing uh i don't use them very often but i use them for some speedier picking that one has 27 frets does it this one yeah dellinger yes no this is the broken i have a dillinger on my oh of my own okay yeah this is the broken uh 27 what pic comparison pickups and all yeah on all of them i don't see a reason for changing them no i'm also doing my own signature model now with comparison which is going to be based on this guitar pretty much but with some features that i that i miss personally you know and look wise some changes of course color and such and yeah volume knobs and you know i'm in the midst of it right are you is it going to have a floyd or is it a yeah say i'm it's going to be this i mean i've been we've been talking back and forth about i mean creating a cheaper model but comparison wants to do their thing and and i respect that and that's also what i also sell the guitar that you actually use yes and and i'm sure i can play a much cheaper guitar as well but but uh this is what i play and i don't wanna i don't wanna change them for like better pickups or because they sound amazing to me you know so i don't need anything else but i mean we also have so many different tunings uh so this is like a drop g drop g so this is standard a right yeah yeah yeah yeah yes exactly so this is the same but we dropped this a string to to g okay and this is in drop c yes all right then when we drop c is like the most common tuning you use or it was yeah it was nowadays it's like i would say it's like thirty percent each of these three okay for the new uh newer album okay um and for i remember was it the song recreation day was that like it sounded like the absolute first song that was down to the lot i remember and it was the first time we used the seven string ibanez yes but it wasn't downtuned i mean it was in a standard yeah but then when we played it live i couldn't sing it because it was like super high oh okay so then we down tuned that and that's how we got to a all right i remember that because that was like oh like they mean business yeah that's definitely a seven what is it i can't even remember oh is it on this let me crank [Music] that what is it yeah something like that now it's even heavy right but i remember it was so good because henry brought the guitar in yes and i never played the seventh string but we started playing seven strings then and it was this uh steve you know multicolored oh the universe yeah i think yeah i think he actually took away all the color of it henrik you're a stupid boy [Music] how good does that sound i don't need another pic it's cool man it sounds good i want to hear the drop g man it's that's can you play that just drop g so this is the drop g guitar yeah we use it for and it's even [Music] sounds great what is it blindfolded is i love it i mean it started with me around with this [Music] do you remember what thickness you have for string on that drop g 68 okay that's not too fast no it is finally left me off the hook i don't need to play anymore now here's the ifk gothenburg pick he doesn't want to use that oh yeah i don't have a guitar [Music] for me for me it's everything i need in a sort of heavy it still sounds clear i mean that's the problem usually when you tune down it's it it becomes very yes disappear but then we also do we used one of these neural uh okay okay so we did a lower octave on this oh okay on two songs on the new album what did johan say about that joe doesn't care about it does he tune down to drop g i don't know he has to be up no he he doesn't change i don't know how it tunes i asked him about that because he just you won the bass player he's just you guys you have like five different guitars on stage he has one bass yeah that's uh he has a bigger brain than us yes and he also has like 10 great reasons yes for you know doing it but i mean he's such a talented he's the best bass player in the world according to me i would if somebody would ask me what bass play would you do you want to have it's him that's it yeah so but yeah uh i don't remember [Laughter] he just uses one base oh what he was tuned to he's probably not tuned he's too he just don't look at me live he says because sometimes you forget right where you're at and and the song is like and then i look over to johann which is usually on that side and he's like because if i look at him and try to position my hand like him it's going to oh yeah he thinks he's going to throw you off and he has like a one of these uh down tuning oh yeah things as well i think okay now so what is his history you should know you're doing his base no i'm not the draw yeah well let's go on i don't know continue on okay uh no but uh so i'm just thinking what is his lowest note because that's also the thing you know probably anyways he kind of transcribes and plays to uh yeah two and yeah i mean that's a different level of musicianship right there on the other hand since he learns the song like that yeah yeah yes i mean it makes sense for him yeah let's see if i can do this yeah i could what do you use uh when you play live or even so what's used on the album uh you mean as far as say amps rhythm guitar neural only okay neural dsp only but with a little i also have my bargainer plugged in yes so i have that in my back okay yeah at the same time just for the sound oh and response yeah and also when writing you know and then it's just convenient for me to have the use the new rule because it sounds great to me which plug-in is it uh a bunch of different ones i mean of course i used to was it abbasi and and the grain of fire and and i haven't tried the petrucci one yet oh yeah i guess that's pretty cool but um because then later in the mixing process jacob hansen uh reaps it anyway you know so for me it doesn't why should i spend time what does he reamp it uh with a real amplifier then yes okay so it is a real amplifier it is just when you track it's with new exactly of course so it's a evh okay two is it okay are there two uh there's a lot of evh about 5150 style for something yeah i don't know which one but we have to call him too okay yeah okay so for for the album you actually then what about live do you bring your bagner or yeah bring the bog now if neural will make this pedal that they have made you know but brought in all of the artists yes that's what i thought they i i think the amps are in there it's just that you have to figure out you know because the plug-in is a plug-in yeah i get it it's uh chunks but all these chunks and the plugins are available it's just that you have to figure them out yeah and put them in there and i ain't got time for it no exactly no but i mean i mean that would be a no-brainer for me to have all of those great sounds because i think they sound amazing to me you know it's like every solo i did is the neural ones you know i'm just using that so and i'm a sucker for a real guitar yes but convenience is worth a lot too yeah but now it now for me it sounds great especially the solo sounds and the clean sounds are amazing but yeah it's usually where the rhythm sounds that's the last component yeah where it's like okay it's not really there but they are really getting there right now it feels really good you tried the petruchi one let's not make it the neural one but i mean every time i sit and write i use a neural dsp plug-in yeah i mean it's amazing i mean imagine but just like bounce out with the uh the plug-in sound yeah sure i mean and i mean this is what you also understand nowadays when you have sort of been through all of this nerdery with recording and finding the ultimate guitar sound and there's no such thing make it sound good in the in the project that you're writing you know so yeah you have your own studio do you have a lot of outboard equipment a few things i mean of course for my vocals yes uh i have uh i'm working with a company in america called handy amps now and i haven't received my it's like a class a vocal like a preamp i haven't received it yet he just built them okay by hand you know so but other than that i use a warm audio stuff i use heritage or audio and ssl they're preamps yeah or oh they're the small little no it's a desk it's called something okay okay we'll look it up heavily endorsed by ssl as you can hear it's called then i have a ssl fusion which is uh like a bunch of stuff in it okay great for clarification but this is the exact point you know how how how i view my musicianship and guitar playing it's it's tools that i love and appreciate and i have picked very carefully yeah what i want and what i need but then i go on and move on and with that said thank you so much tom it's been a pure pleasure and uh good luck with the album do you have anything last like last words to say yeah maybe if you haven't checked out evergreen at all and you think you know what we sound like then you should probably check it out because it's probably not what you think it is you know i did not i read about a guy the other day who thought we were a german power metal band and that is so as far away from it that you can come pretty much so swedish power lots of great guitar playing i would say yeah from i mean that's one of the the things that i really liked about evergreen is just uh it's a progressive metal band but it's riffs yeah and they're solos like real solos from i mean you have henrik but you're also an amazing guitar player like you're singing and you're also playing incredibly well on guitar it's uh it's even though you say that you're not as you know well no one is as good as dream fair it doesn't matter because you're you know you're on your own level of things and uh you know as like a pantera fan i can hear some pantera stuff i can hear a lot yeah and there's so many things in the details of evergreen which i think is great and that's what i want to mention about guitar playing because soloing is great and all if you're a solo guitar player artist it's fantastic but 95 percent of the song is playing a rhythm guitar and that's where i based my yes you know choice of guitar because it's it's the rhythm it needs to be sturdy in tune you heard it there it is there it is guys thank you so much for watching the new album heartless portrait it's gonna be out 20th of may you better check it out the singles are already out save us and blindfold it and mid-winter calls mid-winter calls i'll put a link to them in the description of this video thank you so much for watching goodbye

2022-05-13 13:54

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