Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / HAMMERFALL Australian Tour Exclusive Interview With OSCAR DRONJAK

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HAMMERFALL Australian Tour Exclusive Interview With OSCAR DRONJAK · HEAVY Music Interviews

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All right, thanks for joining us at heavy Mat today. We're here with
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a very special announcement. No one else in Australia knows this yet, but
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we do and so does Oscar but tam a fall. We'll be coming to
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Australia in January twenty twenty five. So mate, thanks for joining us to
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talk about it. Yes, thank you. We're very excited about this.
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I mean we only did one show in twenty seven years of existence or thirty
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year receiven more so it's yeah, it's going to be fucking cool. I'm
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passion is so basically you give it as a belated Christmas present mate, when
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you hit the country, but the first time ever for a big tour in
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January, starting January the fourteenth in Perth and you go through Adelaide, Melburne,
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Sydney, Mitchard, Brisbane on January the nineteenth. It is a long
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way off yet, mate, but I'm sure the announcement is going to make
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a lot of people happy. Here mate, you're going to make the year.
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We'll help. So, I mean we were hard every time we do
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a new album, we do fresh in Australia and everybody's asking them when are
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you coming back, when are you coming over? And we never have anything
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to say about it, But finally now we do have something to say,
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and it seems like it's it's I heard from people who like friends of mine
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in bands have been there. That's say, it's great. Everybody wonder why
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don't you go there? And now I have actually no good answer for that,
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only that the fact that we are going now, so that's that's enough.
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Well, I'm not gonna let you get away with it that easy,
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mate, because we got to address the elephant in the rooms straight off,
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like why have you ignored us for thirty years? Thirty? Yeah, I
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think for us it's more mostly about not having somebody to work with down there.
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It's never been a We have worked with a German booking agency for all
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these years, all the time, and they don't have any good connections down
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there, and I think that is the main reason has it hasn't happened?
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Really? I mean we've we've been all over the world except for Australia for
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the most part, so you know it should have happened. But exactly that
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sort a lot of those lines probably like there wouldn't be many places left in
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the world that you guys haven't paid. So when you come to Australia for
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something like this for the first time, like, do you do a bit
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of research, do you talk to bands that have been here before to find
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out what to expect, or do you want to come over cold and just
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have it as an experience. I think since we've been there once, I
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mean there was like nine years ago now, I think, But then that
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was a good experience, really good experience, so I thought, I'm if
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that is anything to go by, I think we're going to have a really
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good time. But the shows we played in Melbourne that time, I believe
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it was fifteen, maybe it was seventeen, I can't remember now. Years
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ago anyway, but I think also ultimately, and this is my experience from
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touring all over the world talking, but ultimately heavy metal fans are more or
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less the same all over the world. They just want to go to the
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show, be entertained, have a good time, listen to some great music,
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and watch a good show. That's all they want to do. Maybe
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hopefully drink some beers as well during during Yeah exactly, I didn't need to
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say that, but but yeah, I mean that that if that is the
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attitude, which I believe it is. Uh, We're going to have a
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really good time, very good on suppose. The clip side of that,
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mate is like people don't know what to expect from you, are they?
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You know? I said, what can we expect from mahamma ful live show?
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Well? Uh yeah, this is a new experience for me because I
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always have like some past touring to compare to, but since, like you
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pointed out, we don't have that here. Uh So, but I think
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our shows nowadays are they've ever been before. So if you didn't see us
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because we didn't come in uh in the you know, twenty years ago,
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I think this will will still be the will blow you because I think we
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are a very very good live band now. We always try to be,
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but I don't think we put together the pieces until later on in the career.
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So but of course we're not going to play just songs from the previous
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albums either. I mean, we're gonna do the normal setlist that we do,
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but we also don't exclude anything because it's old. I think Hammerfall is
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a band that has I believe personally, if you take any song off any
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album, you could insert it on any other album and they will still be
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cool because that's the way it feels like what we play live, because it
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doesn't matter which album the songs come from. They fit very well together in
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the whole set, and we do play songs from our entire career. So
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it'll be kind of a best off of people who haven't seen us before.
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But it's also going to be I think, in energy overload from us,
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because, like we talked about, we haven't been there before more or less,
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and that always gives you a little bit of extra boost. So what
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conclusion, what you can expect from Hammerful is one big, heavy battle party.
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Oh yeah, well, do research for this interview? Might like every
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pretty much everything I looked up about you guys, the main feature of it
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was fucking an awesome band live. Like pretty much everyone just rivees about it.
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So what do you stress up? Is it? Is it a sort
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of is it a theatrical show or is it just straight up rock? Yeah,
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it's it's not theatrical in any way. Well, it depends on how
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you look at it. But we don't do props and stuff for the most
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part. I mean when we tour in the big places in Europe, we
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have our hammer and shield and stuff on stage. But what I'm talking about
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is the energy, the raw energy of the performance. That's that just something
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you. I mean, we're I'm over fifty now, or three of us
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are actually over fifty. The fourth one is be turning fifty this year,
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so we will actually be four people in the band over fifty coming to you.
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But I guarantee you wouldn't notice from watching us live because we are a
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very high energy band, and that's what we sort of lean and pride ourselves
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on because we have what I want Hammerful to be, and I think what
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Hammerful is at this moment live is a band that, like I said earlier,
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you go to watch and you will leave with a smile on your face.
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That is the goal from us. Yeah, you know, on the
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other side they point to but like you have played so many shows over the
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years to so many different audiences, Like, is there anything like a crowd
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can do while use a planing to sort of you know, make you walk
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up stade you just kinda fuck up with specul Yeah there, Well, I
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hope I haven't seen that yet. I hope that's going to come in the
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future. But no, I mean for me at this point in my life,
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I think, what I the thing. I mean, there's no comparison
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to people who are singing along, just smiling, having a good time.
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That is the best feeling I know from stage. I know what they are
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feeling too, because I have been there. I mean, I've been in
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the front row with my favorite bands and watch watched them play when I was
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younger. We'll still do sometimes actually, but but yeah, for the most
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part, when I was a teenager and stuff, you know. But so
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I know what they're feeling, and I gives me goosebumps to think about that
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I can give somebody else that feeling just by doing what I love the most
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as well. Uh. And there was this recent we thank you so one
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thing. We just came off a tour in the US. Just been home
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for a week now, but there was one incident. I don't remember what
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city it was. But the thing with the US as compared to Sweden,
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well, sorry Europe brother, but Sweden mostly because we have a decibel limit
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at shows. If you have if you have kids on the show, at
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the show, there needs to be a decibel limit that They're really strict with
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this over here. So most people want to don't want that decimal limit,
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so they keep it eighteen and and I think that is a big mistake.
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They don't do that normally in the US, not every for the most part.
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There are some places to still do it, but in the US they
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don't usually do it because they have a different system. You go in,
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Yeah, if you want to buy something at the bar, you get an
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X on your hand, and then it doesn't matter how old you are,
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because you just show them I got an X. They ideed me, you
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carded me, so I can buy beer whatever. So that means that they
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can have kids there as well, and this tour was no exception this usually,
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I mean there's not a ton of kids, but you spot them right
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away, and it's usually That's what I love the most about playing for kids
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who are into the show. Maybe they don't know the lyrics, maybe they
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don't know all the songs, but they are there happy and want to enjoy
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themselves because their parents love the music. Probably you know. But you can
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tell always if there's a disinterested kid or if they kid is really excited about
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being there. So I always try to give my guitar picks to people.
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I think during the show that I think deserved it. You know that.
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I think these people gave me a good show as well. So they can't
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get a guitar. I just don't want to, don't want to do like
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yeah, yeah, like tons of it, like even Manstein did earlier.
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He just took your bucket. They make me. I wanted to be special.
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So that's my attitude towards that. So I tried to give my guitar
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picks to people who I think deserve it. And kids normally are very appreciative
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of this. Maybe you know, a fifty year old man or guy or
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girls for that matter, don't care about the guitar pick from something. They
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just there all the time exactly. But the kids, they get really into
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that. So this incident, there was one one girl, maybe eleven years
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old or so. She was there with her dad and they were a bit
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out in the audience, so they weren't in the front row or the front
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section even they were maybe ten meters out or something or something like that.
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Uh, and it's quite hard to throw a guitar pick that way, but
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they were at the end of the yeah, exactly, Well, you get
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better at it, but at the end of the show, I tried to
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hit them with a guitar because they were standing like there's a pick pick,
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you know, like like this universal sign for your pick. But so I
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had I had three left. I say, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
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use them first. I'm gonna try to get her pick. So I threw
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the first one way off. The second one was closer, but still not
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near enough. The third one I hit her in the face or body,
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so she felt it at least, dove down onto the ground, got it,
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looked at it, and then uh embracing her father and they both were
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jumping with joy. Oh that's beautiful. I was like, now I got
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goose bumps again. That is that is the best thing I think that I
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that has ever happened to me on stage, this pure, unadult, unadult
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read joy and they were just father and daughter unified in metal music, in
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this love for for this type of music. And that is the best thing
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that I can remember that happened to me on stage. Ever. I think
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I'll bet you, I'll bet you that will be a memory, the loss
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of her whole life. Day you have to pick shall have a father,
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you know, like that'll be connection beautiful, That That is the point.
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I mean, you know, this is the next generation coming up, so
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you can't just ignore those people. You can't have shows with the kids must
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be able to see the bands that they or their father's listen to, or
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mother's listen for that matter too. Actually just might be because I've never asked
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this question to anyone before. But you're talking about making that connection with the
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crowd and seeing the on stage, But how much can you actually see off
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stage through all those lights and stuff in your face? Can you see the
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crowd? There is a lot, to be honest. Some some venues have
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LEDs up here that shine right down in your face. Then I can barely
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see the first row usually, but the more unless I lean outside, but
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then nobody can see me, so so that makes no sense. But we
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have a few places in the in the during the show when the well with
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the audience participation and stuff, and then the light guy usually takes up the
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lives so we can see everybody. But for the most part, it's it's
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quite difficult. Depends on I mean, it's different also for me because Joe
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keem is singing, is looking at the audience all the time, so we
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can see things but light's going off and off, we can see stuff.
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Whereas we who were playing music, we usually bang our heads and you know,
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whatever the fuck we're doing, so we don't stare at the audience all
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the time, and that makes it harder for us to uh notice what's going
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on unless it's lit in us in a way that that that doesn't blind us
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basically. But for for the most part, I can tell there have been
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a few shows that for the whole whole concert more or less, all I
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could see was one or maybe two rows. That's that's it. You got
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to flash or you know, like glimpse of the rest sometimes, but it
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sometimes it takes me half a show to realize, I said, there's actually
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a balcony up there. You know this. It's not always a sometimes,
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and when there is, it's not always visible, So yeah, it can
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be difficult. Actually reminds me of something that really pisses me off. I'm
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not sure about you, but they've got those lights that are called blinders,
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and you get some venues to just put them on the whole time. It's
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like, mate, they're called fucking blinders for a reason. Yeah, yeah,
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I know what you mean. I hate those from an audience standpoint,
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it's terrible, especially if they're on for a while then you can't see anything
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after that. You have to do this for a yeah, exactly should you
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shouldn't have? I always do. I'm always prepared, all right, that's
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good. So the other thing you've got to speak about, mate, is
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you going to be releasing what will be your any album? Avengs have fallen
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on August and Knights, So how do you feel about Like, do you
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still get as excited after after so many albums? And both yes and though
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I do because it's, uh, We've been working on it really hard.
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We've I've been living the songs for some songs are five years old too,
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so you know, I've had them around for a while. I've been living
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with the material for so long. And we've actually recorded in November, December,
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January as well a little bit, so it's been done for a while.
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You know. Now it's getting getting I'm getting anxious to just want to
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show people what we've done because I'm very, very proud of the album.
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I think we've done one of our strongest albums in recent years in my opinion.
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Of course, this can vary a lot for everybody. Else. But
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I'm very happy because three things. First, if all the songs on the
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album are they serve a purpose. So if you take one away, the
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whole is going to collapse in the middle somehow, even if it's one of
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the non single ones, so to speak, the ones that that we don't
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think are the strongest, even though the other ones would have an impact if
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you take them away. And also, I think that the production of this
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album is uh from and the and when the production, I mean the performance
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as well, from from us because David. We normally, you know,
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we start with the drums, recording the drums, and then everybody else builds
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their stuff on top of that. And David came into this so focused and
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so energetic, and his drumming is so powerful that when he was done,
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everybody was like, whoa shit, we got to step it up now as
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well, you know, because he put the bar up here, you know,
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so we we kept on going and feeding off of that. Of course
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when we recorded the bass and guitars. And then during these recordings, Uh,
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Fredrick Nus from the producer, and he was going he was going to
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do the mixing at the end as well. He said, oh shit,
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guys, I feel pressure now to take it up the level as well now
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because you've already reached it. So for us, the production is is uh.
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I think when we recorded the previous album, Hammer of Dawn, Uh,
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we did a good job with that one too, but it was kind
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of hard to get the energy because of that. We recorded that during the
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pandemic, so Pandemic had a bit of a later, a bit of a
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filter on top of I mean, it's not noticeable when we released that album,
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but I think if you compared the two, you can feel the difference
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because this one is so much more energetic and so much more powerful in every
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way. And I think also the songs. I'm very happy with the songs
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this time. I think they are diverse, they are well written, and
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you know, I do the demos. Joe him and I write the songs
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together. So I do a demo of the song with the instruments and the
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drum machine. Then whatever vocal melodies I have or coorse, whatever is,
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I send it over to him and then he finishes it. And so I'm
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very happy with my work. I usually am, because if I'm not happy
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with it, I don't set it off to somebody else, right, But
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what I got back from Joakim this time is better than I think I have
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ever heard him to the songwriting wise, I think it's it's one of those
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like he gave every part on every song the perfect mix of of his the
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lyrics with the melodies that he created. So it's that's part of the research,
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because when I send off my songs, I know I think it's a
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good song, but I just don't know how good it will be until his
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stuff comes on top of it, because we write the songs together, right.
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So once I got back these these songs from the ideas and we had
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a bit of a back and forth with both the music and the vocal melodies
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and lyrics and stuff. Once we were all satisfied, I think we both
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felt that this is a very this is a strong album from start to finish.
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Well, I hope this comes across as a compliment like it's meant to
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be made. But I've never lasted more than four songs into a power metal
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album without turning it off before, and I'll chuck your album on. While
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I was doing the research for this, and I went a whole way through
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and ill let it run through again about another halfway through again, so it
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was I thought it was great, awesome album. Thank you, thank you
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very much. Although I do I know that everybody outside of Europe refers to
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this type of music as power medal, but we have always been a heavy
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metal band from day one. I know that in Australia, in UK,
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and especially in the US they all called but lump a bunch of bands together
18:18
as power medal. But for me, when we started out, this genre
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did not really exist. We came from from the eighties, from the heavy
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metal movement of the eighties. That's when we grew up, you know.
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So we always shied away from from anything that wasn't heavy metal. And that
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has also has its roots in the fact that when we started with Hammerfall was
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the middle of the nineties, this type of music was ridiculed. It was
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not cool in any way. It was laughed at basically, well not basically
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literally left We have been laughed at on stage several times. So uh,
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we wore this heavy metal as a badge of honor because nobody else cared about
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heavy metal in that in those days. So for me, this is this
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goes a little bit deeper than just a genre classification. For me, it's
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a it's a matter of honor and pride as well, because this is what
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we've always been prided ourselves on when everybody else said, what the hell are
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you doing? This type type of music died in the in the eighties or
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early nineties, and we said, well, we don't care, we want
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we this is our type of music is it's never going to die as long
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as we play it, you know. And that's why this thing is with
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the power metal and the epithet is it's a little bit more important than just
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classification of the band to me. I actually my favorite song in the whole
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album is The End Justifies, which you would released today as a single Chris
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Banger, cool, thank you. I'm happy you like that one. That's
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that. This is a very good example of what I said about the production
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with David's drumming, because he's playing insanely on this one. M So,
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he released the End Justifies, and you've also released where am I? So
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are they a good representation of what you expect from the album or are they
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just sort of scratching the surface. Uh? I think they're a good representation.
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But you won't find another song that sounds like them on the album,
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this, which I think is what what makes the album strong, because there
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are no two songs that are like on this one. Uh. And so
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I think if if because we have a few other songs planned for release before
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the album. Uh and I think they all are in their own way a
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good representative on the album, but none of them sound like the other one.
20:40
You know what I mean? Very good? All right? What else
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have I got for it? Last year, you completed a massive tour with
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the legendary Halloween brother that spanned over two years. Like, how did you
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feel after that? You would have been craving your own beds by the time
20:55
you finished. You in Yeah, well, we were home quite a lot
20:59
too. We did tour all over the world or most of the world.
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We were both in Latin America and North America and Europe, and there was
21:07
a whole bunch of shows during that time. But it also was not in
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a row. I mean. The thing with this tour with Halloween was we
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had a tour planned for the spring of twenty twenty two or the early spring
21:22
of twenty two, and that was right before all the restrictions were lifted and
21:27
stuff, and they didn't want to risk it, you know, because it
21:32
was very early. They in Germany, a lot of people didn't want to
21:33
go to shows in the beginning. I think it was the same in a
21:37
lot of places. For the first year after the pandemic, they they had
21:44
sold because a lot of this tour was also a tour that was supposed to
21:47
happen before the pandemic and then was postponed and postpone and postponed, and then
21:52
once it actually happened or was supposed to happen the last time, they didn't
21:56
want to risk it. And people told me during that year that about of
22:00
the tickets they had already sold didn't show up for the shows because they were
22:04
afraid of the you know, to go to the concerts. There was a
22:07
big thing over there. So that's why those reasons are why the Halloween management
22:12
decided to postpone this tour again, even though they just opened up the restrictions.
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So but that also meant that there were no venues available for the dates
22:26
they wanted at the you know. So what happened was instead of us doing
22:32
four or five weeks together in a row all over Europe, they split those
22:37
dates up in like one show here, two shows there, four shows that
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weekend, and that kept on for one a year and a half. And
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then of course we went to North America and Leatin America in between those shows
22:49
as well, So there was that year or those two years were difficult because
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it was almost every week and it felt like and you were never home.
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And I have a son, he's nine, nine years old now. He
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goes to school. Of course every day. If I'm not home on the
23:10
weekends, I will never see him, it feels like, you know,
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So that was a difficult time just to go get through that because we had
23:17
our shows of our own as well for every other weekend that we weren't so
23:22
there was a yeah, it felt like we were always gone. Even though
23:26
I was home a lot in between, it felt like we were always on
23:30
tour. So it's good to be back to normal now, I mean the
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normal four or five weeks in a row thing that we do. Yeful,
23:37
all right, Oscar, Well, thanks very much for your time, and
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I made Hammerfare will be back in this back in it so I'll be here
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for the first time ever on shore from January to forty in twenty twenty five
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album events the Fallen is out August time and it's an absolute fucking crackout,
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so best of luck with everything you made. You plan in Bristolan two days
23:55
before my birthday next year, so I'll come back to what other beer and
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celebrate. Absolutely looking forward to it, man,