DARK TRANQUILLITY Frontman Discusses Upcoming Album

Justin Donnelly of Australia's The Metal Forge recently conducted an interview with DARK TRANQUILLITY frontman Mikael Stanne. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On the songwriting sessions for the group's new album:

"We've actually been home for the summer, which means we've been home for the last four months. In that time, we've been focussing on writing the new album. So far it's been fantastic! It's just been a lot of rehearsing and writing, and it's been really chilled out. We're finishing it up right now. We have a few more days work left to do before we leave on tour on Tuesday, but we figure everything will be finished in the writing sense before this weekend. It's going to be cool. We have twelve songs that are fantastic. We just have to put the finishing touches on them, and then they'll be completely ready to head into the studio, which we'll do when we get home from this three-week tour. We'll spend about two months recording the album. I think it's going to be an unbelievable album. It's definitely going to be very different from what we've done before because it's all over the place. It has all the aggression, intensity, passion and melancholy that we're known for. The songs feature a whole range of emotions that I love writing for. We loved creating these songs. We'll just have to see how it turns out when we put it on tape and it finally gets produced onto a little plastic disc."

On fans' expectations following the release of "Character":

"There's no pressure on us to produce something that will be better than 'Character'. We try not to think about stuff like that. We know what we like. When we are satisfied, we know it will be a good album, at least to us. That's what really matters when it comes down to it. 'Damage Done' (2002) was really successful for us in reaching out to a bigger audience, particularly in the U.S. There was some kind of had the pressure then to come up with something more commercial sounding that would really open us up to a completely different crowd. Some people were expecting something a little more accessible, but we weren't comfortable with that at all. That would have meant the end of this band. That would have finished our creativity, and the fun would have been taken out of our writing. So we decided to make a really difficult album. I think 'Character' was really kind of progressive in a way, almost technical and not as straight forward as perhaps what most people wanted to hear. I think 'Character' tended to take a few more listens to absorb. That was one of the things that we really wanted to achieve. There are so many albums that you listen to and think are amazing initially, only to forget about them after the tenth listen. That's boring. The kind of albums that I listen to, and go out of my way to buy are the ones that will stay with me for a long time, and ones that I will keep listening to for years and years. That's what really matters to me. Music should be timeless, not just catered towards a certain audience for a certain time. So it really was a conscious decision on our behalf to make 'Character' an intricate album that needed time from the listener to appreciate. Provided that they had that time and patience, they were rewarded I think. When we finished recording the album, we really didn't think the album was going to sell that well. We didn't know what people were going to make of it. But the album turned out to be our biggest seller yet! (Laughs) So what the hell do we know?”

On the direction of DARK TRANQUILLITY's new album:

“No matter how hard we try to make something totally different, it still all comes down to six guys in a room writing together. So whatever comes out, it's still going to be DARK TRANQUILLITY. We don't know anything else! (Laughs) We try to extend and explore as much as we can. We really tried to make different songs this time around, and not just an overall theme or feel to the album like we have done in the past. We really aimed for very different sounding songs. This album will be as different as 'Character' was to 'Damage Done', but I guess there are also a lot of similarities as well. There are a lot of songs that cover the same premise that was shown on 'Character'. Overall, it's much more diverse. Some are really slow, while others are really fast, while some are really emotional and the remainder are really aggressive. We really pushed the individual songs as far as we could. It was really interesting and challenging for us to work like that. Usually we try to squeeze in a lot of things to each song to make them interesting, but this time we focussed on the feel of the song and went from there. It's going to be really interesting to put it together, not to mention the whole running order, which I'm sure is going to be crazy! (Laughs) I think overall, this album is going to be a harder album to really get into than 'Character' was."

Read the entire interview at www.themetalforge.com.