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Conquering The Mountain With ANTON ERICSSON From QUANTUM · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:01
  See trade again, Circles on the table, Marks of Comfort, please abstract
• 0:12
  Psston bring till the table, till well to see it soon. Yeah.
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  So my name is Anton Exel and I'm a bass player and singer songwriter in
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  the band called Quantum on Sweden, Stockholm and h Yeah, we've been playing
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  for a couple of years. Weas an a couple of years ago and now
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  we're releasing this Friday. We're releasing down Them Outside, which is our first
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  full length and it's an album with lots of things happening. There's a heavy
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  riff, this's great groups, there's lovely chords and this some beautiful melodies and
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  you know, we have some strings, we have some wins and of course
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  we're really typed in it together band the place. Yeah, beautiful, My
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  thanks? Did I answer? That was perfect? Mate? Yeah, As
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  you said, once of them has said to drop your debut album down the
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  Mountain Side this Friday, April nineteen. So how are you feeling. You're
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  nervous, you're excited, You're a combination of all of them, Like probably
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  combination of all of them. I would say, I mean a bit nervous,
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  but I mean people who have heard it think it's really have given us
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  a very positive response, So I'm mostally excited actually let people hear it.
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  Yeah, now you sort of touched on this a little bit in the intro
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  mate, but can you go in to a bit more detail for us,
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  like explain the album from a musical point of view and what you were going
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  for with it. Well, I mean what we were going for. I
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  think we we wrote I mean, I I write most of the songs.
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  But when when I was sort of writing the songs, They've been around for
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  a long time, a lot of these songs, and and you know,
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  you had some of the riffs done and some of the songs done, and
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  you realize that a lot of these songs kind of fit together nicely, and
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  then you start writing some of the other songs to fit in with those.
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  And I think one of the general sounds that this is like rock with a
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  lot of electric elements of metal and a lot of electric elements of progue and
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  a lot of electic elements of some jazz and some classical misk as well.
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  And I mean that's that's kind of what the sound is. But I'm sure
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  we had like a if you were conscious about a sound from the beginning.
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  It was more than something that sort of turned up organically. I would say
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  now the pressure release says to brace yourself for a rare musical sonic journey,
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  which sounds pretty cool. Man, Like, does that mean in terms of
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  atmospherics or different styles of music? What do you think they're referring to?
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  Well, a lot of things. I think sonically it's we have. It
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  is very diverse because we have very like kind of Donalds of jazzy low,
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  so we have very like in your face heavy eighes inter the dynamics, and
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  we're also incorporating a lot of different kind of sounds with some parts. We
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  have like some strings coming in some parts of winds, and we sometimes we
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  have to be really like a harsh vocal approach and we're not really growling,
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  but we're singing kind of aggressive way, and sometimes we are like really sweet
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  vocal harmonies. So it really is a journey, and I'm very conscious of
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  having the music flow in a nice way. You know. It's. Yeah,
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  now you've released a single abstract bliss and on the verge, So if
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  that's all someone has heard of your music, would you say that they're a
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  good sonic representation of the album overrole, I mean those two together pretty much,
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  Yeah, I mean I would say that they are kind of I think
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  on the verge is a better sonic p recipentation. But in a way they
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  kind of are sort of the middle ground of the casie. You know,
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  the we go we go pretty far in this direction, then we'll go forward
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  in this direction, and on the version aspctlist we cannot stay. We can't
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  stay here like in with the intermediate for the sound. Yeah, I would
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  say, so, how would you say that down the Mountain Side differs musically
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  to you ep the next breath of air? I think I think the main
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  thing is we go further in each the different musical directions that we have that
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  we if I see, the express of air is very much it has a
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  very kind of classical rocal classical program kind of feel to it. I would
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  say, uh, and we we explore some symphonic, we explore some jazzy
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  stuff, but here we go even heavier. When we go heavy, we
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  go even jazzier when we go jazzy, and we go even even more you
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  know, like epic and symphonic when we go and even more epic when we
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  go epic. So it's it's it's it was sort of because there's more time
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  problem on the album we had, there's more time to sort of spread your
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  spread your wings a bit down the mountain side. It almost expresses some pretty
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  deep and intense themes throughout the album, mate, So can you can you
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  run as through a few of those themes? Yeah, I mean lyrical themes,
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  Yeah, I mean, uh, basically I think a lot about you
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  know, how how people in their lives tend to kind of wear masks or
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  kind of use alter egos to deal with whether it's the professional, whether it's
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  like a relationship to their friends or their partner, and how this can be
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  very taxing, and how usually these things tend to be what leads to them
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  into really dark territory. For example, a lot of people who are domestic
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  abusers, they usually have this thing that they're basically hiding their feelings and they
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  can be well lock on them and then they explode. And you know,
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  other people might have struggle deal with things that maybe they're you know, they
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  identify with how they are when they're in toxicity, so they drink a lot,
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  and how this this basic like no trying to be someone else to deal
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  with your life is the root of a lot of problems that people face in
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  their lives. I think that's very interesting. So so there's a lot of
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  that on the album. Yeah, and it also features guitar salos from Richard
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  Henshall and Tom McLain, both from the Van Hagen Rate. So personally watchoose
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  those guys to be on the album and and what what did they bring to
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  the overall sound? Right? So I mean Tom McLean h he actually worked
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  on the last DP work. He was mastering it to the master for it,
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  so so we can't stay in touch. And then we were what would
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  be cool to have him on the album to their solo, and because we
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  had the feeling because I'd heard someone was playing in some of his videos he
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  could probably do a great job and on the off leave, so it's got
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  him do it and he absolutely killed it. And then I thought, I
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  want to ask Richard Handsl to the solo because he you know, you see
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  him do all these guests sort so why don't he do one for us?
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  And we and he can do some pretty crazy stuff and you know in the
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  at the end of the the Heyman, the cochord song you know, which
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  is a song that kind of really goes ballistic in some ways. It's like,
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  how who can make this even crazier? And I was like, well,
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  maybe Richard Hanslock could could add some sauce to that, so and he
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  really did. He really really did love me. When the plane works out,
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  It's good, isn't it. It sort of touched on this briefly before,
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  mate, But your music blends progressive rock with metal with light right many
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  here a classical music and there's a bit of jazz in there. So you're
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  like it's a very eclectic mix and not the sort of thing normally here together,
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  Like how did where did it come from? Well, I mean it's
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  not I would say, it's not really a conscious thing. It's more something
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  that kind of happens because I'm I'm trained classically. I'm a classical decician or
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  professionally ins in the chamber almost and stuff. And I also played quite a
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  bit of jazz, and I've been listening about the jazz, and I've also
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  listened to heavy meuse and metal and some rock and some prague. And I
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  think when when I write music, I'm not really thinking about I'm doing.
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  I'm just writing and then what intuitive comes out comes out. And then after
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  a while, oh wait a minute, I'm kind of doing this and I
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  know this is kind of similar to that thing. This is kind of similar
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  to that, And then he is, Okay, this is kind of a
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  mix. And when you reflect on what you've written, you is that it's
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  kind of a mixture of all the things that you that you've been listening and
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  all the things you've been playing and all the things you've heard. Really,
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  so it's it's more so that I've digested so all of this this type of
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  music and what comes out will end up being a mix of its. How
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  about when it when it comes to recording the finished product of these songs,
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  like, how how do you know when you've got the balance right between all
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  of those you know, like I haven't got too much of one style in
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  there and not enough for the like is there a process for that? Uh?
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  Well, I mean basically the recording pro we start with with just the
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  band and then we see so so basically record for bass and drums live in
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  room. So so we start with that, so we have the groove down,
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  then you know, the guitars and vocals and and then then we can
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  then kind of go from there. Okay, what can we how can we
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  expand this on? But what can we do? Should we have some synthesized
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  the should maybe this could be some strings in this bit, Maybe we could
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  have a bit of a wind section playing stuffing. You know, so we
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  kind of go production was that way, And but sometimes I also know already
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  from the get go that actually we should have we should have some some some
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  win section here for example on Moss and Leaves. I knew right from get
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  we should have wins on this one. So so so sometimes yes, yes,
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  yes, Candon. You know from the beginning that you have of sounding
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  your in the mind. But but sometimes once we have when when we're producing
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  it kind of cold, we could enriched the son and when it cost when
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  it comes to fire too, I think we always try to ten and to
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  have that, but the sound of the band is at the center, at
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  the forefront, but it's and then give space to other things. Sort of
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  very nice, all right, Thank you to mate, has been a pleasure
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  speaking with you. The album down the Mountain Side it's out this Friday,
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  April line eighth, and what I've heard of it, you the buddy good
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  album mates, I congratulations and best of luck. Let's see dream again.
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  Circles sound the table, marks of confident place abstract less till the table until
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  I see it a soul you didn't even notice. Pass your just a god
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  in your ways and I'll do some touch with jewelry reality while the line starts
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  to grow. What do your money? You think you mad? It's all
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  believe that does happen? The bondiful and I trying to sell what you lot
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  as there's all yourn it has seen the sun for a moment. Your card
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  is style. The boy started to change and the as you started see always
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  it squire fresh and seed of your badies, the strawbedies, the sounds like
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  coming. He started to leave before the advices start to dream you week,
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  it's not a spar rsel? What did you make this? All that?
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  Cause there's any different realities here? Somehow I kill an observer and the diction
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  is uncontrolled. Compose you and then the other one. Fuck are your way?
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  Leave me? O? Where do you live? Night with you?
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  Oh you're gonna get topped by it. You're gonna come with me? Listen,
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  I can't take care of my topcas that's what are you trying to say?
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  Come, I'm okay, okay, just ab what did you don't many?
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  Just say did you make it's holding that pista? Why you tell yourself
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  just estcause you don't