GRAVE – Interview with Drummer Ronnie Bergerstĺhl

With the posting of this GRAVE interview, I have completed the unholy trinity of Swedish death metal. The only band missing from this circle is ENTOMBED, but it has been many years since ENTOMBED played a similar style to that of GRAVE, UNLEASHED and DISMEMBER. The other three groups had their own lull points in their career, but they never moved too far away from the pure death metal posture established in the early nineties.

GRAVE’s first three releases—“Into the Grave” (1991), “You’ll Never See..” (1992), and “Soulless” (1994)—were classic, churning chucks of death metal sickness. Each album had its own traits, yet each shared a common thread of sound. After “Soulless,” original vocalist Jörgen Sandström (he also took over bass duties after “Into the Grave) left the group to play bass in ENTOMBED, leaving guitarist Ola Lindgren to man the mic, and marking an obvious shift in momentum.

Ola and GRAVE faltered at first with the release of the sub-par “Hating Life,” but caught their second wind with “Back From the Grave.” All subsequent albums showed Ola’s vocals mature as the band fell further back to their original style. GRAVE’s most recent album, “Dominion VIII” is possibly the closest the band has come to emulating their early sound. It is definitely the fastest of the group’s career, and Lindgren’s vocal performance is the strongest yet. After releasing seven studio albums on Century Media, GRAVE released their first recording via Regain Records. Drummer Ronnie Bergerstĺhl spoke with Metal Centre about this newest release.

You just released your eighth studio album. The album’s title is very suggestive. How does this title relate to the album?

Well, it's our eighth album, so of course that has quite a big thing to do with the title. Second of all, we wanted a title that is easy to remember, you know like “Soulless,” nothing complicated like a three-or-four-letter sentence. We just wanted a simple word that people will (hopefully) remember.

“Dominion VIII” includes a sound and style that harkens back to your first two albums, “Into the Grave” and “You’ll Never See…” How is this album similar and different from those classic recordings?

You're absolutely right about that. We wanted to go back to our roots with this album, to make it sound as it should—old school, raw and dirty. Compared to those specific albums I'd say this one is more controlled playing wise. The feeling is kinda the same when it comes to the production. The songs are definitely in the same vein: more straight forward and in your face songs than on our two latest albums.

This album is the fourth recording with Ola as front man. What progressions have you made since “Hating Life?”

First of all, Ola's vocals… they are very, very brutal now compared to when he first started to sing. He is one of the best in the business! “Hating Life” maybe stands out a bit from the rest of the GRAVE albums as it's more thrashy.

Going back to the sound similarities between this album and your first two, one of the parallels between “Dominion VIII” and your initial recordings comes by way of the guitar. All three recordings sound quite close in the dirty, down-tuned guitar tones. Obviously, there have been a lot of changes in technology in the last sixteen years. How have you incorporated this technology into your sound?

You can say that (laughs). For this album we recorded the guitars with a Line6 Guitar Port, no “real” amplifier. We tried different ones in the studio, but the sounds we got from them were nowhere as good and angry as the one we got from the Guitar Port. The original idea was to mix two sounds: the Guitar Port and a “real” amp. In the end, we just said, Fuck it! If it sounds good, why not use it for all guitars,” and we did.

What are the details concerning the writing and recording of this album?

The writing process took us about one month. Ola and I wrote riffs at home and recorded it through our computers, put them up on an ftp-server and when we had enough riffs, Ola began to ink them together into songs. After he'd done that, all three band members– me, Ola and Fredrik listened to them, changed some things if needed and then we started the recording. We didn't rehearse for this album; only Ola and I went to the rehearsal room, and that was only one time. “Deathstorm” is the only song made that way with us two jamming. All the instruments were recorded in our rehearsal room, Studio Soulless, and it took us about a month to get everything done, so it went really smooth. The vocals and mixing part were done in another studio, Sandkvie, together with Ola's brother, Peter. That took us a week.

“Dominion VIII” is perhaps your fastest, most unrelenting album of your career, yet the album ends with one of the slowest songs on the album—“8th Dominion.” What does this track do for the album?

That song is the closest you’ll ever hear Grave do an “epic tune”. It's a massive song with lots of different turns along the way, and it's the perfect closure for the album. “Dark Signs” and “8th Dominion” are the two songs on the album that I think stick out a bit. “Dark Signs” is also a slow song and not as “riffy” as the others. We use more slowly grinding chords.

From the mean, muffled guitar rhythms to the psychotic vocals and the hellish lyrics, GRAVE has never failed to deliver some of the darkest music in extreme metal. “Dominion VIII” has a charred malevolence. Tell me about some of the nefarious concepts found on the album’s songs?

It's basically the same old stuff: good against evil and some anti-religious things. Ola wrote the lyrics along the way when he put down the vocals. Matti Kärki from Dismember also helped out for one song, the opener “A World In Darkness.” Being about war, that one is in the true spirit of “Kärki.

What was it like leaving Century Media knowing you were one of the bands that helped establish the vastly popular label?

It was nothing special. They've done a really good job over the years, but we had fulfilled our contract for 7 albums and wanted to try a new label. Lucky for us, Regain Records wanted us and we wanted to work with them and here we are now…

You have been touring the U.S. with MONSTROSITY. How has the touring been going?

That tour got cancelled and I want to point out that we never confirmed that tour officially. There were shit loads of problems concerning that tour and when we hadn't received any contracts or 100% nailed fees for the gigs only 3 weeks before it was supposed to begin. We said no! This is a tour that will cost us more then we can afford.

Do you have any plans on making it back here in the near future?

Hopefully, early next year but nothing is settled yet.

Now that you released “Dominion VIII,” what can we expect next?

The plan is to begin the recording for the next one sometime next spring, and to get a release in October/November 2009. I hope the wait will not be too long.

www.grave.se