IN FLAMES Frontman ANDERS FRIDÉN: 'This Is My Hobby That Turned Into My Work'

Sami Jarroush of the Rock It Out! Blog and Consequence Of Sound recently conducted an interview with vocalist Anders Fridén of Swedish metallers IN FLAMES. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On whether he has days when he feels like quitting playing music:

Anders: "That happens to everyone, in whatever you do, whatever you work with. If you work [at] a post office, if you work as an engineer, or somewhere else, you have a bad day here and there, and that happens. But this is my hobby that turned into my work, and I fucking love it. I'm super grateful that I can travel the world and play my music and can touch people all over the place with our art. So it's awesome, and you've gotta realize that. When you're feeling down and you feel, 'Ah, I'm so exhausted,' and, 'I hate this,' whatever, then you've gotta realize what you're doing. I don't have to be in a factory, I don't have to go to the bank, I don't have to… I can play rock and roll and drink. [Laughs] And I can have a good fucking time at the same time and meet awesome people all over the place. So I'm super stoked that we still have this feeling, this spirit within the band after all these years."

On whether it gets to be a chore having to do certain things that are involved in running a successful band:

Anders: "We never felt we have to do anything. We don't have anyone around us that says, 'You have to do this.' We are masters of our own thing. So we don't have any record company that forces us [to do anything]; we don't have any management that forces us. We are the ones that are in control all the time. And all the steps that we've made, it's on our own. It's what we do. And I'm super happy with where we are right now, with the steps that we've made. I love our history and all the things we've done to date."

On whether there is a certain accomplishment that would signify the "endgame" for him as it relates to being in IN FLAMES:

Anders: "No. It's when I lose it; that's the endgame. When I don't feel like this is the greatest thing in the whole world, when I walk off stage and this doesn't give me anything and there is no upside in this one, then it's time to quit. But right now we love recording albums and we love playing live. So that's it. That's what we do."

IN FLAMES' new album, "Siren Charms", sold around 9,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 26 on The Billboard 200 chart. Issued in the U.S. on September 9 via Sony/RED, the CD was recorded at Hansa Tonstudios (DAVID BOWIE, DEPECHE MODE, U2) in Berlin, Germany. The cover artwork was created by Blake Armstrong of Space Boy Comics.