IN FLAMES Guitarist: We Cannot Write An Album Like 'The Jester Race' Again

Lords of Metal e-zine recently conducted an interview with IN FLAMES guitarist Björn Gelotte. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Lords of Metal: IN FLAMES has always been the kind of band with a lot of diversity, with this new release being no exception. There is the balance between intensity and aggression but with an emphasis on melody. How difficult is it to find that balance? Is it something that comes naturally or do you have to look after?

Björn Gelotte: "Well, to us it is extremely important to stay true to ourselves. We are not focusing on what others would like to hear but do what we want to do and what we do best. We want to stay loyal to ourselves. So when you hear a kind of balance it is something that is natural and not something we have been searching for or tried to achieve."

Lords of Metal: If you do not stay loyal to yourself and try to do what everybody else want to do, if you are not being yourself, making music for the fans or the label instead of making it for yourself; well, it shows in the end?

Björn Gelotte: "You know, in the end it is us playing and hearing the song on an (almost) daily basis. Fans can come up to the show, they might even visit a couple of them and they will be playing the songs regularly but the ones we have to write the music for … is ourselves, as we work with our songs each and every day. And if we would do something that feels not great for even just one of us, I am sure this will show either way in the performance or the quality of the music."

Lords of Metal: On the track 'Dead End' there is a female vocalist singing with Anders [Fridén]. Who is she and how did you get in touch with her?

Björn Gelotte: "Her name is Lisa Miskovsky. She is a singer/song writer from Sweden and here everybody knows about her. She has a very beautiful voice and is a very talented singer. The things she normally does do are very far away from what we do and I think nobody expected her to come up on one of our CDs. We heard that she, although she does do a totally different thing in music, likes metal and especially IN FLAMES. So once we got the chance to do something together we fully went for it and I think it worked out great. The vocals of Lisa are a great contrast with the vocals of Anders and it turned out perfectly. The vocals do not sound gothic as well as we definitely did not want that to happen."

Lords of Metal: Anders has been quoted as saying "We would never do the same album over and over again." With that said, how do you feel that the band continues to evolve while still maintaining the IN FLAMES overall sound?

Björn Gelotte: "Hey, we all have grown older now, we have become different people. Sometimes people ask us if we ever can write an album like 'The Jester Race' again, but we do not want and cannot write such an album again. We all have grown into different people and musicians now, so that is impossible and is not something we want to achieve. Now we focus on playing the songs live and that is different from the songs on 'The Jester Race', although they turned out to be great live."

Read the entire interview at www.lordsofmetal.nl.