1. Your logo... but we know that already. We also know you have changed your label from Black sun to Metal blade, but we don't know why, please explain it. Do you feel things are any better with Metal blade?
Yes, we feel much more pleased being on Metal Blade instead of Black Sun. The reason we changed label was simply ´cause the contract on Black Sun expired and we wanted to move on. There´s no bad feelings between Rolf (Mr.Black Sun) and us, I still call him up now and then and talk about life. Being on Metal Blade means that we will have pretty much a world wide distribution and a lot more money are put on advertisement and promotion. Few weeks before the album was released Metal Blade flew me to their home office in Germany to do promotion. I did 85 interviews in four days. When we were on Black sun Rolf didn´t arrange so many interviews for us, most of them were handwritten interviews by zines who self contacted us. Nothing wrong with interviews like that, but my point is that Metal Blade are much more professional (hail Andreas). Sofar we have done over 100 interviews to promote ?Hell Is Here? and that feels very good. And how did we get the deal? On our european tour in Jan ´98 we played in Strassbourg (France) and Andreas from Metal Blade was there. Before the show we heard that Metal Blade was there but we didn´t think so much of it, we just never thought that Metal Blade would be interested. During the gig (I think it was playing Black Heart) Johan., the vocalist, threw a cup of beer in the audience and ofcourse it landed on Andreas head. We heard after the gig that he was pretty pissed of. Anyway..the tour ended and we went home and two weeks after, I got a phone call from Michael(the boss of Metal Blade Europe) and they had heard that we were unsigned. They send the contract and after a few phonecalls and faxes we signed the deal. It´s a four album deal and the contract is perfect.
2. Your music has changed considerably. The blasphemous vocal has faded, it has turned into more brutal...the melodies remained, but anyway, it seems you left the old creation of Crown of Thorns... I can hear punk, it is more thrash and heavy influenced, or is it only my imagination?
Yeah, the music has changed a bit, but we have never kind of sat down and talked about what kind of an album we will make next. Everything comes out very natural and I think that deep inside we felt a bit less scared this time to try out different stuff. We are still a Death Metal band but we are not afraid of trying out different shit. Maybe you could say that today we do music with the recepie that if it sounds good it´s good. And not like ?But this is a thrash riff, we can´t use it ´cause we´re a Death Metal band?. I know that in the end the songs will be more interesting to listen to and it gives The Crown a sound that´s not a typical sound that fits into just one category. We all love ofcourse Death Metal, but we also listen to bands as Motörhead, Danzig, Iron Maiden, Paradise Lost, Mötley Crue, Metallica, Misfits etc etc..And that´s the reason we sound as we do.
3. Musically it is thoroughly worked-out as usual, we can hear the musical art again that I admired together with my co-editor... How long did you prepare this masterpiece?
The first riffs to ?Hell Is Here? was written when we were recording ?Eternal Death?. Then there was a kind of dead spot for a few months and suddenly it just exploded. We had suddenly about 20 new songs. First we talked about that we should rehearse all the songs and then pick the 10-11 best songs for the album. But when we had rehearsed the 11:th song we felt that these songs would make one hell of an album, I can also say that now we have 21 new songs just waiting to be recorded and I can guarantee that we´re not out of new ideas. Anyway.. then we just started to rehearse the 11 songs like hell. We have never rehearsed as much as for ?Hell Is Here?. We rehearsed every day and Janne, the drummer from hell, rehearsed twice a day. Almost every day we came up with ideas to improve the songs and listening today at ?Hell Is Here? we feel prou as hell.
4. The sound is deliberately raw, it sounds devilish!
Thanx a lot! The production on Hell Is Here is very natural sounding. It´s not so digital/clinical as for an example the productions from Abyss or Fredman studio. And that gives the production that Slayer kind of rawness and we love it.
5. The first song "Poison" is for sure a sort of small hit, I think it was your intention to put such a catchy song at the beginning, wasn't it?
Yes, we wanted to open the album with a short, intense, catchy and high energetic song and that song is definately: The Poison.
6. I would like to know what the opinion of a Swedish man about the Czech Republic is, I don't mean musically, but in general. Just put down what you think.
Ask me this question in April, ´cause then we have played there and I know more about it.
7. How come nobody speaks about the Northern countries, except for some documentaries... the Czech tv stations speak about wars, increasing prices, unemployment... about other countries such as the USA, Germany, France,England, Russia, developing countries etc... but nothing about Scandinaviancountries such as Norway, Sweden, Finland, but also Denmark and so on... Nothing about Viking countries so to speak. What do you think of that? Is it that the rest of Europe ignores you? That's how I feel it... Or are they afraid of Vikings? I think that's it...
Afraid of Vikings? hah..hah..that´s a good one....Seriously, as usual the news channels talk about negative stuff like poverty, wars and shit like that or about cool sexscandals like Bill Clintons sexgate. And maybe there´s not enough bad shit going on in Sweden that it would be interesring for the Czech tv stations. Didn´t they mention the disco that burned in gothenburg that killed 63 people?? Anyway...the northern countries don´t have so much of that shit either so they don´t have anything to talk about...
8. I think I won?t consume your time anymore, thank you for the interview!
Thanx a lot for the interview Jaromir. In April the ?No Mercy festival tour? will most likely come to Czech Republic and the bands that will play are: Peccatum, Limbonic Art, The Crown, Emperor and the mighty Morbid Angel. Be there or forever burn in a disco.(oops!). C-ya! Best regards: Marko Tervonen
HELL IS HERE, WELCOME IT WITHOUT FEAR.
The Crown, Box 60 45, 461 06 Trollhättan, Sweden, evil.caveman@mailbox.calypso.net