ONE MAN ARMY AND THE UNDEAD QUARTET Frontman Discusses New Album

Mark Carras of RockMyMonkey.com recently conducted an interview with Johan Lindstrand of ONE MAN ARMY AND THE UNDEAD QUARTET. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Rock My Monkey: You have a new album out, called "Error in Evolution". How do you feel the band has progressed since "21st Century Killing Machine", and what do you feel "Error in Evolution" offers fans that your last CD did not?

Johan Lindstrand: Well, you know, the last CD, "21st Century Killing Machine", was mainly written by me. I wrote like ten songs, and the other guys wrote like two songs. I think the new album has much more melody, catchiness, and grooviness to offer. Plus now, after the debut album, we've gotten to know each other very well. And we have toured like hell, you know. We did like one hundred shows for the debut album, and we got to know each other very well. We knew what each other wants and likes when it comes to music. And that means everybody in the band can step forward and say, "Hey, I have an idea." That means that when there's things that when they have an idea, but they think, the whole band isn't liking it, then that is really the issue here. Because the unified band issue, with everybody putting into this band, everybody is kind of approving, you know what I mean? That's a very important thing, I think. That's the main difference between this new album and the old one, because now you can hear all the differences. You can hear a much more wider sound, which you couldn't hear on "Killing Machine", because I wrote "Killing Machine", I wrote like an old-school death metal theme. This new one is much more wider, it's much more easy listenable. I like it much more. It's not about me saying, this new album is much better than the old one. Every band is saying that the new one is better, but that is just to sell more records. This is not the case, because in this case it seems much more right to say this because we are, we feel more like a band now than we did back on the debut album. So it's great, actually.

Rock My Monkey: So this one is mainly, the difference basically is, the last one was more of a solo project, whereas this one is more of a band effort, and more of a solid unit.

Johan Lindstrand: Yeah exactly. Exactly. When I started to write music in the time of 2004, for the first demo, "When Hatred Comes To Life", I was on my own. And I wrote music for six months on my own. That is probably reflected on the first album. Also, after these six songs on the debut album — excuse me, on the demo — I wrote also four songs that was included on the debut album. That means ten songs. The other guys wrote two songs. And of course, you know, when it comes to my inspiration and everything, I have, I am inspired by MORBID ANGEL, JUDAS PRIEST, and everything at the same time. But I have my restrictions. What I am as a lone songwriter, writing my music, of course hear that this is the same guy doing it. But if five guys are involved in one album, you can of course hear that kind of sound, as well. That is the main difference is that more people are involved than just one guy.

Rock My Monkey: You guys recorded this in Bohus Studios in Sweden.
What was there about Bohus Studios that made it the best place to record this album?

Johan Lindstrand: Well, actually, we recorded the whole album, except the vocals, in Bohus Studios for the debut album. But on this new album, "Error in Evolution", we recorded only — no, we did not record anything — that was what I was going for. We did not record anything because we felt that Bohus sounds more... was not the most optimal sound for us, because it's a very plush studio. It's probably the best studio in Sweden, because it can offer you anything, if you have the right money. But we decided to use from our studio, Deadline as main studio this time. Recorded the vocals, the guitars and the drums and everything in our studios this time. And we only mastered the whole album in Bohus Studios. That was probably the best thing we could do, because we felt more relaxed when we did the album at ours because we did not have the time limit that we had at the expense Bohus Studio, if you know what I mean. We could work more easily in our own studios. I think we'll work with him more in the future, to be honest, because we know this guy from before. He's great to work with.

Rock My Monkey: The concepts of this album; what's the story behind the inspiration of the songs on "Error in Evolution"? What "errors in evolution" do we have?

Johan Lindstrand: Well, I mean, the title itself speaks on the errors that I personally think afflict this world. I mean, you have this, even in Sweden, you have this increasing criminality going. A lot of murderers going. You didn't see this five, ten years ago. It's definitely increasing in Sweden. You have these inner school massacres in the United States, and you have terrorism going on in the world and everything. I mean, you think people should know from past mistakes about doing stuff. Apparently they don't. They keep on making wars on each other. That's basically where the error is going. This doesn't mean that I'm a political guy. I'm not interested in politics, to be honest with you. But I felt that this title reflected very much of the stuff that I was writing in the songs. Because "Such A Sick Boy" and "Nightmare in Ashes and Blood" and "Such A Sick Boy" and "The Sun Never Shines", and all those songs. It reflects on real stuff that is happening in our world today. It's, yeah, that's basically it, what it's all about.

Check out the entire interview in text and MP3 format at this location.