HAMMERFALL's JOACIM CANS: 'Heavy Metal Music Is Timeless Music'

In a new interview with FaceCulture, HAMMERFALL singer Joacim Cans spoke about heavy metal's enduring popularity. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Heavy metal music is timeless music. Heavy metal, to me, stands for quality. Not everything, of course, but the core — I would say the core of the metal bands. Then, of course, we had the hair metal movement that kind of killed the whole thing at the end of the '80s. But I think heavy metal needed a little break to reinvent itself and kind of come back with the essence of what heavy metal music is. And then I think we kept it like that ever since the late '90s. I mean, the '80s was not even 10 years — it was not even a decade. The '80s, which we're talking about, that was only a couple of years. Then everything changed."

He continued: "The return of heavy metal has been going on for 25 years, and it's still very solid because we do not mix. Heavy metal is this. If you wanna play something else, well, then you can do this subgenre. Because there are so many subgenres now. In the '80s, what kind of subgenres did you have? You had hard rock, heavy metal, thrash metal… Death metal came, but this was kind of a little before. The name, the genre black metal was invented but the sound came later. VENOM invented the name, but then I would say maybe a band like BATHORY invented the sound. And for me, growing up with metal, that is the music that for me as a teenager, and that is the music that brings back memories, good and bad."

Joacim added: "I wouldn't say that I'm as hungry as I was before trying to find new albums to listen to. As a matter of fact, there's just too many albums being released nowadays, so it's really hard to find. I lived at the record store as a kid. Every week I was down there just going through all the new releases. And it wasn't that many releases, to be honest with you, if you compare it nowadays. Because I think the problem is that the demo stage doesn't exist anymore. People do not record demos; they record albums for Spotify. Like, 'Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Don't.' If it's a demo, keep it a demo. Put it someplace else where you can remove it. 'Cause maybe there's a song there, in 10 years' time, that's, 'Oh, no, we should have done it like this.' 'Yeah, but it's already registered. It's on Spotify. It's everywhere, and we can't really take it back.' So just be a little cautious, be careful. Just because you have a song that's been recorded, you don't have to put it out there, because who's gonna find it? It's not gonna make a difference. Maybe you can brag to your friends: 'Yeah, we just released our first single.' 'Okay. On Spotify? Okay.' How many plays the first year? Yeah, less than a hundred. Okay. Cool. Probably your mom, your dad, your grandma, your neighbor. Yeah, they should be a little more careful."

HAMMERFALL's latest album, "Avenge The Fallen", was released on August 9 via Nuclear Blast Records.

When "Avenge The Fallen" was first announced in April, Cans said in a statement: "This is our 13th album. How do you still stay relevant after 13 albums? It's very much like the opening line to the song 'Avenge The Fallen': 'What is the worst, be the one who died, or be the one who survived.' Think about it, because it is a tough question".

He continued: "Do we want to be a band who releases new music just for the sole reason of getting out on the road again or do we want to keep pushing and challenging ourselves? In times where people have less and less attention span, we still think in the form of full-length albums. A few good songs don't make a strong album. A strong album comes from an album full of great songs and that's what we're delivering with 'Avenge The Fallen'."

In December 2022, HAMMERFALL, which started its career in 1997 on Nuclear Blast with its debut album "Glory To The Brave", announced that it was returning to the long-running German label.

HAMMERFALL's entire Nuclear Blast catalog, from "Glory To The Brave" to the 2014 album "(r)Evolution" was certified with a diamond award for over 1.5 million worldwide sales.

Following on from "Renegade" (2000),"Crimson Thunder" (2002) and "No Sacrifice, No Victory" (2009),HAMMERFALL's fifth studio album, "Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken" from 2005, became the band's fourth album to go gold in Sweden, while "Crimson Thunder" even went platinum, surpassing 60,000 sales in the group's home country.

In April 2023, HAMMERFALL released a special platinum edition of "Crimson Thunder" with tons of bonus material.