Interview with death metal band from Sweden - GRAND CADAVER.
Answered Stefan Lagergren (guitars), thank you!
Translated Duzl, thank you!
Questions prepared Jakub Asphyx.
Recenze/review - GRAND CADAVER - Deities of Deathlike Sleep (2023):
Ave GRAND CADAVER! I just came to work. It was raining and it was already very cold. I listened to your new "Deities of Deathlike Sleep" and as I walked around the cemetery, I felt like zombies would come out of the graves at any moment. You really did well with the album. It's raw, it's cold, its bones are cracking. As a band, you date your origins to 2020. How did you actually get together and when did the first idea to start GRAND CADAVER come about?
The first seeds were sown back in 2016, actually, when Daniel Liljekvist contacted Alex Stjernfeldt more or less out of the blue, and decided that they should play death metal together. Alex asked me to join them, seeing that me and Alex had played together before. Things did not pan out back then, because of scheduling. In 2020, Daniel – once again – claimed “Now is the time”, and Alex asked his buddy and neighbour Mikael Stanne if he would like to sing, and they asked Christian Jansson to join as a bass player. I didn’t want this thing to get stuck the same way as the previous try, so I pushed that we should only record an EP which we definitely would had time for. That became “Madness Comes”. The first time we all five met each other was in the studio when we started.
Every time I see a band composed of experienced musicians themselves, who already have something behind them, I wonder if the problem is a bit with the ego of individual members. How do GRAND CADAVER work? I mean now, who is the lead composer? How do you create new songs?
There are no egos involved. We’re a total democracy, which can have its ups and downs, but it is important to us. We share everything equally. However, it is definitely Alex who’s the musical motor in the band. He’s so incredibly creative that we can’t keep up with his pace. But with that said, we all contribute. Christian also writes lots of riffs, and we all poke around in the arrangements.
You are from Sweden, you play Swedish death metal. You have it in your blood. You come from Stockholm and Gothenburg. Both death metal directions intertwine in your music. You give me the impression that you are old friends who wanted to go back to the old days and enjoy the beautiful feeling of the nineties, when everything was created. How do you perceive your scene? How did you actually experience the 1990s and how do you remember them? Here in the Czech Republic, we looked to you as death metal gods. Please remember.
The band members didn’t know each other in the nineties, so we certainly have different memories of these days. For me personally, it was the common rowdy times of being 17-18 years old, and hanging with your friends as much as possible. It was probably unique that our friends had bands like Nihilist, Dismember, Grave, plus my band mates in Treblinka. At least in the beginning, the Stockholm scene was very small. Someone said that there was at most 40 people that were “active”. That obviously changed when our friends started releasing albums like “Left Hand Path”, and changed for the worse a few years later, when TV celebrities started to show up at the parties and gigs, and Entombed acted as house band in some silly TV show.
Let's go to the novelty "Deities of Deathlike Sleep". It has a great sound. Classic, traditional, but at the same time lively and organic, if you understand me. No current plastic and artificial production, but an honest sound that breaks down walls. Where and how did you record and who mixed your record?
That’s fantastic to hear, that was absolutely our goal. We wanted the classic sound, since it’s a superior sound, and we wanted it to sound like five guys playing in a room. We have used the same studio, Welfare Sounds in Gothenburg, and the same crew of Per Stålberg, Kalle Lilja and Dollars Deurell, for all our recordings. It’s a great studio, and the engineers really know what they’re doing and knows what we want to do.
I also like your graphic style. I found out that Illusive Illustration was signed under the packaging. and Stefan Lagergren. I don't understand a little. Does this mean that Stefan is also the author of the cover? What does the motif for "Deities of Deathlike Sleep" actually mean? Is it a road to hell?
Illusive is our artist Albin Sköld, who paints or draws the artwork, while I’m the designer of the packaging. I take Albin’s paintings and decide where they go, add logo, titles, liner notes and everything else. And makes both the LP and CD cover, which obviously are a bit different. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but I don’t actually know the meaning behind the art. I just loved it, because it was a bit mysterious, as well as being original and looked fantastic.
I wonder what your lyrics are about and where you get inspiration for them? Are they books? Movies? And who is their author?
Stanne writes the vast majority of the lyrics. Whenever I ask him, he’s all “oh it’s just blood and death and zombies”, but I know it’s more than that. I know that “The Wishful Dead” is based around Greek mythology. “A Crawling Feast of Decay” has something to do with “scaphism”, which was some kind of really gruesome execution method involving tying a person in-between two boats, drench them in honey and just wait for the animals and insects to come. You know, happy, fun stuff.
Mikael (vocals) and Christian are also members of DARK TRANQUILLITY. After all, it is just a big band that performs a lot, releases albums and has to take a lot of time. Others also have their own bands and projects. How is all this reflected in the functioning of GRAND CADAVER? How can you even reconcile all the dates, concerts together?
If I’m not mistaken, we have made three Grand Cadaver records after Dark Tranquillity released their latest album. Our recordings are quick, spontaneous and just a good time, so that part is mostly manageable. It’s a bit more complicated when it comes to everything else, like playing live. We take the few chances we get, and makes the most of them. Once we played in Oslo, in the middle of a Dark Tranquillity European tour, where Christian and Stanne flew to Oslo the same day, played a Grand Cadaver gig, and flew back to Dark Tranquillity the morning after.
How are GRAND CADAVER doing with concerts? Have you ever performed live? And how did you enjoy the concert? What did the fans say to you and how did they react to the songs live?
We did a short tour supporting At The Gates, and have played some festivals, and a couple of our own headline gigs. It’s always fantastic and extremely fun, both on and off stage. We meet quite seldom, but have a great time when we do. Our second-ever gig was with At The Gates in their home town, so we were off to a running start, so to speak. Packed house.
GRAND CADAVER are basically a starting band, even though it is composed of experienced veterans. How far do you want to go, what are your goals? Will you be more of a "project" for fun or a "regular" band that wants to tour, play at big festivals and release records on famous labels?
We are a band that will stay active as long as we enjoy it. That’s the goal. Our goal was initially to make “Madness Comes” and that’s it. But when we started recording and hanging out, we had such an awesome time, and the record came out way better than I think we expected. So we wanted to continue doing it, and here we are, second album in. I oppose the term “side project” a bit, as we are a band. We are well aware that we are not the top priority at all times, and we’re not working towards being that. If we have offers from big festivals, we are more than happy to play. If we’re offered a three month tour, probably not feasible. We’re not changing record label either, we are more than happy being on Majestic Mountain Records with their total support, and them letting us do things in our own pace.
When the phrase Sweden and death metal is said all over the world, everyone imagines the famous era of the 1990s. But how does your scene work today? I did interviews with a lot of younger bands that praised the Swedish underground. But how do you see it as a person who remembers the "good old days"? Has the scene changed in any way, thanks to new communication technologies, etc.?
The scene is a hundred times bigger now, for sure. Both because of the standards we set in the beginning, and thanks to cheaper ways to record and reach out. In the eighties we had to invent this style, go to expensive studios, record quickly, and then sell demo cassettes in person. It’s hard to get gigs these days, though, with thousands of bands competing, and several always seems to be slightly bigger and better.
What does death metal mean to you? Is it a lifestyle? And why do you think that so many good bands come from Sweden? Sometimes I suspect that they are already giving you a guitar in the maternity hospital ☺)).
Death metal has been a part of me for 35 years, so it’s in my blood. It’s not a lifestyle, but a part of my identity, I guess. It has been really important all these years, but it manifests itself in a different way now, compared to the “all-in” style of my youth. In Swedish schools we had ample opportunities to learn an instrument at a young age, and that obviously contributed to get many interested to pursue it further. But more important is that we had the trailblazer bands that showed you that it was within reach to actually become a good band.
I'm already looking forward to finishing work soon and putting the "Deities of Deathlike Sleep" on my headphones again. I think when I walk around the cemetery, the coffin lids will crack. Thank you very much for the interview, and especially for your music. Let the album sell well and prosper in private.
Thank you very much!
about GRAND CADAVER on DEADLY STORM ZINE:
Recenze/review - GRAND CADAVER - Deities of Deathlike Sleep (2023):
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