SABATON (Eng.)
– Hello, thanks for taking the time. What are you guys currently up to?
At the moment we are on the final part of the European tour, a tour together with Grave Digger, Powerwolf and Skull Fist. Things are going great.
– Why did you pick «Sabaton» for the name of the band? Boths its meaning and origin.
We felt it was simply a name that did not had a special meaning but still made people curious. Some people think we are a Black Sabbath coverband, but that´s of course not true.
– And what are the band’s main musical influences?
Usually music from 70´s and 80´s including Accept, Judas Priest and such. But also some musicals and a bit from classical music.
– How did you come up with the idea of releasing the DVD and live album «World War Live: Battle of the Baltic Sea»?
Our fans requested a livealbum for a very long time and we always thought about how and when to make it. During the World War Tour we brought recording equipment and recorded almost every show without any specific reason. After the tour we were sitting down and discussing what to do with the material. Our recordlabel suggested a Live CD and we loved the idea.
– Is its feeedback fulfilling your expectations?
Its widely exceeding it, the feedback from both fans and media has been fantastic. We did not expect such thing to happen from a Live album, but we are happy that it did.
– The content in the album are 20 tunes recorded live at the Sabaton Cruise. Is there any track you have liked to include in this album but you finally didn’t?
Well, there are some from the cruise and some from different places around Europe. We filled the first CD with as many songs we could from the cruise, some had to be cut away due to timelimit on the CD.
– To all those who haven’t heard yet about «World War Live: Battle of the Baltic Sea»; what are we going to find on it?
A genuine but still unique Sabaton show, in Swedish! Maybe it can be seen strange to release a show from Swedish area but we thought that most people anyway understand the words spoken in between the songs. The show was a bit special as we did not had a setlist, we asked people to scream for different songs and we were the jury then who screamed loudest.
– Lyrics this time deal with World War I and II. Could you please shed some light on this?
Our lyrics deal with historical events, it has been such since 2005 when we released Primo Victoria and we like the topics. Its more interesting for us then to write about something from fiction.
– Your previous «Coat of Arms» had quite success and got nice reviews. Now that it has been a while since then; do you think you have have done some things better?
We are satisfied with Coat of Arms, but there are some things we could have changed. The recording process where we first started with Peter Tägtgren in one studio, then continued in our own studio without producer and finally mixed it with Fredrik Nordgren in another studio. The idea of using 3 studios and 3 producers was not ideal. It made it complicated.
– You’ve been for some albums now with Nuclear Blast; how’s like working with such a big Metal label?
Its for us a big difference, more people take the band serious now. Our albums are availible and there is promotion and interviews with us worldwide instead of only Sweden.
This has truly opened lots of new doors for us.
– We don’t know many Power Metal bands from Sweden, it actually seems to be there a bigger Sleaze or extreme Metal scene. What could you comment on this? Any melodic Metal bands you would like to suggest?
Of course we have Hammerfall who started the whole Power Metal wave and many bands who tried to follow them. We have bands like Bloodbound and Morgana Lefay who also reached some status and are really good bands. And our friends in Nocturnal Rites.
– You have had the chance of playing with bands as JUDAS PRIEST or IRON MAIDEN. What’s left for SABATON to get?
Indeed we could cross over Accept, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Scorpions in the same year. This was amazing for us to share stages with bands like that. There are still some left, like I want to play with Metallica. Lets hope that the future will bring that to us.
– Finally, what are your near-future plans?
Directly after this european run we go to america for a months tour there, will be fun to return to America again. After that we will start working on a new album.
– That’s all, thanks once more for your time. If you would like to add some final words; last lines are yours.
Finally we were able to return to Spain after some tours where we could not include Spain. I hope that all you spannish sabaton fans continue to support us and thus making it possible for us to return, again and again.
