Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Theoretically Speaking With RIKARD ZANDER From EVERGREY

Transcript

Theoretically Speaking With RIKARD ZANDER From EVERGREY · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:22
  Yeah, I'm my name is Rick Sander, and I'm the keyboard player of
• 0:27
  Ever Gray and we're about to release a new album called Theorists of Emptiness.
• 0:35
  Beautiful Mane. Thanks for joining us, Yeah, thank you for having me
• 0:41
  by pleasure. So, as you mentioned, my friend every Grade release your
• 0:45
  fourteen studio album, Theories of Emptiness on June the seventh. So after so
• 0:50
  many albums by fourteen is a lot like after so many, do you still
• 0:53
  get nervous in the lead up to a new release or is it sort of
• 0:56
  like now I've been there, done that. Yeah, I've been there,
• 1:00
  done that, but I'm still we're still we still put so much effort into
• 1:07
  every album we do. I mean it's we we always try to do our
• 1:15
  best, and we always try to top the previous albums, So of course
• 1:21
  we are very anxious to see how it's going to be received. And yeah,
• 1:27
  we're always a little bit nervous of course, because you really we've been
• 1:34
  in the process for such a long time, so we really don't know.
• 1:38
  We don't have like an objective side of it yet. So it's it's it
• 1:45
  feels good when you start to get some good reviews and hear people liking it,
• 1:51
  so already like pressure goes away a little bit. Yeah, it's all
• 1:57
  that subject And like forteen albums is a hell of a lot of there's a
• 2:00
  lot more songs in that. I go forteen albums. So do you find
• 2:04
  that the more music you write and the more music you put out, like
• 2:07
  you find it becomes easier or harder to come up with something that sort of
• 2:09
  saunds fresh and new. The more you're right, well it it could it
• 2:17
  could be. But we always try to find new angles for every release we
• 2:23
  tried to do. I mean, we're not going to change completely. We're
• 2:27
  still everyway and we're going to put out every gray music, but we try
• 2:30
  to find a new way of writing maybe just to try to keep it fresh.
• 2:38
  And I think the new angle on this album is mostly that the Joe
• 2:44
  and our bass player has written a lot of music and he hasn't done that
• 2:47
  before, so that naturally made it a little bit different actually tell us a
• 2:57
  bit more about theories Reamini's from a musical point of view and what you're gone
• 3:00
  for with say On. We also changed the mix mixing guy. We had
• 3:09
  the Jacob Hanson, very very good Danish engineer, who mixed all like last
• 3:16
  five albums or something. But we we felt we wanted to to develop in
• 3:23
  that department as well, So we had an English guy called Nolly Get Good
• 3:29
  and that of course makes it a little bit different, and that's what was
• 3:36
  approached. We wanted to make it a bit different, just to to uh
• 3:45
  yuh, making ourselves ourselves more. How do you say? Uh, I
• 3:53
  don't know to uh, I can't find the English words right now, but
• 4:01
  surprise ourselves a little bit. I would say a lot of those lines,
• 4:08
  like how would you say that this album differs musically take a previous album a
• 4:12
  heartless portrait. It's it's it's a bit hard to say. I mean,
• 4:20
  it's we will our main focus is to write good songs and do the music
• 4:26
  the best we can, and then then it's always different eras of our lives
• 4:31
  and so so it naturally it's something new will happen. And like I said,
• 4:41
  Joan wrote a lot of songs on this album that I think made the
• 4:45
  sound a little bit different. But I mean we're still the same guys playing
• 4:50
  the instruments, the same guy singing the songs, so you're not going to
• 4:56
  hear that much of a change, but hopefully people feel that it's fresh.
• 5:04
  Although we we released so many albums, hopefully people will think this This one
• 5:12
  also will have a contribution for our catalog. And an early review that I've
• 5:18
  read of the album has taught it possibly your best album ever, Like,
• 5:24
  and I know you're going to be, but would you agree with that?
• 5:27
  Life? You do you feel that strongly about it? It's it's this early.
• 5:31
  It's impossible to say because it's it's like when when when when when we
• 5:39
  finished an album, it's like, yeah, we we think we think we've
• 5:43
  done our best. We think this is good. But when people say this
• 5:46
  is our best, I mean that's not that's nothing that you I don't know.
• 5:50
  It's it's a surprise that people feel that, after so many albums,
• 5:56
  that we still can make our best album. It's it's it feels, it
• 6:01
  feels very unreal. Actually for me, it was like, yeah, I
• 6:06
  think it's a decent album. I'm a bit, I'm a bit. Yeah,
• 6:13
  I got some some good tunes, you know. So so when when
• 6:16
  people when people say things like that, I get really surprised. Actually,
• 6:21
  that's good. The album closest with the song A theory of Emptiness, But
• 6:27
  there's no track actually called Theories of Emptiness like and obviously it's more distreferencing in
• 6:31
  titles, but I'm guessing that means it's the actual title of the album's got
• 6:35
  a bit more meaning because there's no song named directly after it. No exactly.
• 6:42
  And the whole lyric thing is is it's more or less Tom Tom's or
• 6:50
  our lead singer. It's his area all the way. He writes like one
• 6:57
  hundred percent of the lyrics. In pre albums, maybe some other guys that
• 7:03
  wrote a few some lyrics as well, but but at this stage he writes
• 7:09
  all the lyrics. So it's it's hard for me to get into h the
• 7:15
  actual meanings of those things. Why that song is called and I mean it's
• 7:24
  an instrumental and it's it's called Theories of Emptiness, but but yeah, it's
• 7:30
  it's it's more more question for for him to answer. Actually, I'm probably
• 7:34
  just I'm probably just reading far too much into it. It's probably just a
• 7:38
  spelling on it. The album features guest vitals by Jonas Reny from Catonia.
• 7:49
  Why why choose choose him as a guest vitalist? And then what did he
• 7:54
  bring to the sound. Well, we were kind of a coincidence. He
• 8:00
  was involved in the Arian project Lucas Arion, and so was Tom. So
• 8:09
  they met at at the concert, at the show where they had they were
• 8:16
  doing together and became kind of friends, and and Tom just asking, Hey,
• 8:20
  what do you say? Do you want to be on our next album?
• 8:24
  And he said yeah, sure, And I mean it was wasn't more
• 8:26
  complicated than that. It was nothing that we had really didn't discuss with the
• 8:35
  band. It was more and more like, why not, let's try it.
• 8:37
  We love Catatonia and I think he likes every Gray as well, so
• 8:43
  so it was just the good timing to try try it out. And I
• 8:48
  think the result was really good. It became a really really nice song,
• 8:54
  and it was it's really cool to hear Jonas growl again a little bit before
• 9:05
  mat But I read it quite from Tom that that said with each album we
• 9:09
  strive to introduce something new. So what what is that something new that specifically
• 9:16
  that you've introduced for this album. Well, I if you can find something
• 9:22
  new, I would I would say again that it's Johan's our bass players contribution
• 9:28
  in the songwriting. I think that's the most new on this album because he
• 9:33
  he hasn't really written the songs on previous albums, so that was kind of
• 9:39
  a surprise for all of us as well when he introduced all those ideas and
• 9:46
  we were like, oh damn, we haven't we have a full album here
• 9:48
  with the ideas that you came up with, so more or less. So
• 9:52
  I think that's the new thing about this album, and that we also change
• 9:58
  the guy who mixed the album. I think that that makes a difference because
• 10:03
  we used to have Jacob Hanson for such such a long time, so I
• 10:09
  think that's makes made the change as well. Oh I'm no musician, bro,
• 10:15
  so I can't actually quite get my head around this. And I'm thinking
• 10:18
  there'll be other people out there too. But when you say that, how
• 10:22
  can hal can a different person writing the songs have an impact on the sound
• 10:26
  of the album, Well, it's it's when you have when you have someone
• 10:37
  who's written a lot of a lot of songs, you kind of get familiar
• 10:39
  with it, and you and when you put when you're going to do like
• 10:46
  your vocal lines, uh and and instrumental parts, it's it's familiar. If
• 10:52
  you have a guy who you haven't heard written a song for you before it
• 10:58
  it feels new and fresh. You really don't know how to how to how
• 11:03
  to approach it, and that's a good thing because then you will find something
• 11:07
  new about it. So I think that's the reason why we feel that it's
• 11:13
  a little bit new. Maybe the fans won't hear that, but for us,
• 11:20
  for us, it was kind of fresh to to have that new approach.
• 11:26
  That makes a lot more sense when you put it like that. Thank
• 11:28
  you. There's there's an interesting sentence in the press release that says that the
• 11:33
  tracks are created to balance each other mutually. Like what what does what does
• 11:39
  that actually mean? I have no idea put in I didn't I didn't drive
• 11:52
  that. I I mean it's it sounds beauty, you all. Yeah,
• 12:01
  yeah, maybe that was it. It sounds it sounds good. It sounds
• 12:07
  good. Yeah. But but but of course you when you when you put
• 12:11
  an album together, you try to to have the songs in an order that
• 12:16
  will fit for it. I mean, we make albums, we don't make
• 12:20
  singles. So we want we want to the listener to feel that from the
• 12:26
  first song to the last song, that that it feels like it fits together.
• 12:33
  So so maybe maybe that's what it means. I don't know for Every
• 12:39
  Gray. After the album comes out, they they said didn't get out on
• 12:43
  the World Order provider. Yeah, we have a lot of gigs coming up.
• 12:48
  We're going to South America in a few weeks and then we be back
• 12:54
  in Europe and do a lot of festivals. Uh. And then you have
• 13:00
  like a Scandinavian tour in September, and then we have a European tour in
• 13:07
  the fall. And that's about it for this year. Next year, I
• 13:13
  don't really know the plans, but that's about it for this year. The
• 13:18
  plans for this year sounds like you better get some resting now, mate while
• 13:22
  you can. You got to busy us and yeah, yeah, definitely gonna
• 13:28
  be very busy, very good. All right, Rickound, thanks very much
• 13:31
  for your talking. I might be the pleasure to speak with your. Theories
• 13:33
  of Emptiness is out on June the seventh, and he's another cracker of an
• 13:37
  album from Every Gray, Like he goes one of those bands that just consistently
• 13:41
  get better. I don't know how you do it, but he don't know
• 13:45
  it. It's like kickles on the inside, your spoke, your words.
• 14:18
  It's like going without nowhere, just knowing that it nerds. It's like you
• 14:24
  paint that pictures without colors, and the nerds spoke with our faces. I
• 14:33
  still hope till you say what you want say I see it like sits,
• 14:50
  Just say s. It's just like a wall of water and the way the
• 15:16
  list, the full lame will fall and not a way you don't the world.
• 15:26
  It's like if I unter and when you start to travel you hold it.
• 15:35
  Say what you want say I see this sis on the horse, sa
• 15:43
  me crazers sill, Just say I want sevens to the school, save to
• 17:07
  save me. Sas as making me said joy sea scart sails se se sees
• 17:36
  as making me sail. Just say see used to spurt