Interview SABATON (by Droll)

After amazing long waited Sabaton show in Israel we had an opportunity to make a short interview with Pär Sundström.

Are you satisfied with The Last Stand as an end-product?

Yes, we are very satisfied. I mean, when we just made an album, when we record it, then we don’t have any clue about how good it is. It takes a little while for us to melt it, to get it into our hands and to get some feedback from fans and other people that listened to it before we start to appreciate it to ourselves. But now – yes, I feel very proud of it. I think it’s really strong album. It is too early to say where in discography of Sabaton it’s gonna be in the end and how many songs we will play in five years. That will be decided by fans overtime.

Talking about fans: in many interviews you say that you got the songs’ themes from the fans. You have many letters from fans and then you writing the songs. How do you choose the topics of the songs?

We have lots, I mean a lot of fans, and we found out things when we walk around and we meet people. I see a lot of it. So before writing an album we sit down and we’re walking through the topics that we have. We decide upon the idea, general idea for the album – I have lots of it – and we look through of what we got. In the end just before we write the lyrics, we start research song by song. When somebody comes and tell me «You should write song about that» I don’t really like it. I don’t care actually, I just find it like «This is about that».  Simple as that, I don’t want to know anything more until we write because it is more exciting if you get the pressure for a song right before you write it. So if I read some story and then two years later I going to retell it, I lost the whole connection to it.

Thanks! Some unpleasant question: two years ago you had unpleasant situation when Russian government or some man was blaming Sabaton for Nazi propaganda. Was it the single situation or you had something similar?

We’ve been blaming for things in the past. People pretend to think that Sabaton is this or that. I think that our songs, if you look at Sabaton as a whole, you will understand the whole picture. But I totally understand everybody who gets the wrong opinion about Sabaton if they just heard one song or a part of the song, or something like that. They can misunderstand us. And it’s natural; this is the kind of way you can do. But if you fully understand Sabaton, then you won’t take us as any political band.

You are writing songs about wars and about battles. What is war for you?

Well… Luckily I live in Sweden, so I didn’t see it. And I hope I never will. I have spent the majority of my life writing about it and I think I know more than average Swede about it. And I’ve been around a lot of places, and I’ve met people who have been there. As I said, I’m lucky I haven’t been there. I wish there was nobody. Unfortunately wars do happen. And they don’t seem to stop, which is horrible. I think as long as… As long as I going to live at least, there is gonna be war on Earth, sadly. And I hate it. It’s a very, very bad thing. I’m sad for it. But I can’t really change the world.

What the thing that you will never allow to yourself to do on the stage?

Oh well… I will never, you know, be treating the fans in a bad way. I don’t want to go on stage like unrehearsed or drunk, or in a bad mood. In any way do a bad concert. I’ve decided that I want to go on stage and do a good show. Not all artists do it. Some artists are going on stage drunk. I would never do that.

You touring a lot, your albums are out on a schedule every two years. What are you doing in your free time from music if you have any?

You know, I never strived to have any free time. What are you doing in your free time? What the normal people do? Anybody? They do what they love, right? So why would I ever need any free time if I do what I love every single moment in my life. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. So I don’t look for a free time. I think that free time, when I’m not with the band, of course I love to spend it with my family. But on that it is right to be with the band.

Is there any place where you yourselves want to go with a concert or tour?

We played in a few places that we sing about, which was nice, you know. And it always is something special. And the other places – maybe it’s a little bit crazy idea, but it would be nice to play on Normandy beach. Then it’ll be something special. It could be one day. Let’s see. But that would be one of those things I want to see happen.

So, new album, new tour. What about your future plans?

Of course we have a lot of plans. At the moment this is just ending up the summer for us, and we playing last show in two days in Cyprus after this amazing show here in Israel. Then we’re off to America, we going to stay there for two month. And then we got some more tours over: we got a huge European tour early next year, and then we got more touring plans for the spring. And I’m pretty sure next summer we’ll  touring too, because it has been a business for me for the last ten years, so I don’t think next summer going to be indifferent. I know already how it looks like in the autumn, I’m booking it already. So I know very well what I’m doing for the next year and a half. Then we’ll see, when we’ll go to the studio make a new album, but for now it’s one and a half year of touring.

(c) Droll (www.dailymetal.com.ua)