FALCONER (Eng.)

– Hello, thanks for your time. To start, could you introduce the band a little? As we could say FALCONER raised from the ashes of MITHOTYN…
Hi. Yes that’s right. As we disbanded Mithotyn I kept going with the melodic and folky metal but with clean vocals. This is the backbone of our sound on all albums more or less. We are about to release our 7:th album now and it’s the most folky album yet and all sung in Swedish.

– And why «Falconer»?
I just wanted a quite easy and short name. Falconer gives me a picture of both freedom, nature and the medieval days. Topics that regularly comes back in our lyrics so it’t a perfect name for the band.

– Your new «Armod» will come out next June 6th. To start getting into it, what does «Armod» mean?
It means poverty, despair, hardship. Something like that. Both the music and many lyrics makes me think of the 19:th century I Sweden with emigration due to bad crops, poverty and sickness and also the constant fear of god and the church. A very hard and dark era in Swedens history.

– And what can your fans expect from it?
No English lyrics, if you don’t get the first edition which contains 4 of the album songs as English versions. Also there are more traditional. Folk songs adapted to fit us. More acoustic passages mixed with some of our heaviest stuff yet. I know most fans think that speed equals quality when it comes to us but I hope they can reconsider this time. Tempowise I THINK THIS IS SLIGHTLY SLOWER THAN THE USUAL fALCONER ALBUM.

– All the songs in the album are in Swedish, which is something new as in your previous albums we could only find a couple of them. So why did you decide so this time?
When I came up with this more folky album idea I knew that the lyrics had to be in Sweden just to fit the Scandinavian feeling of the music. Maybe it’s not the most promotional thing to sing in Swedish but we’re not gonna become stars anyway so just let’s do what makes us happy. I¨m not interested in doing the same album over and over again, I started to feel a bit fed up after the last album since some things started to feel like repetition. Many of the new song can not be labeled as a “mouse wheel” recepie.

– This is clearly your most Folk album so far, so I guess that has something to do with the language…
Well as I said it’s the other way around. The one sounds better with the other. If we would have done it in English it wouldn’t really be the sqame thing, just a commersialized adaptation.  The first idea of this came after the 2:nd album we did when both the label and some fans started to request a entire trad. Folk album. This is something in that direction and it wasn’t until now that I felt the time was right due to different things.

– Why did you want to release an album like this? What does it represent to you?
I have allways had a certain degree of folk influence in my stuff and I don’t really know why. But this album is a sort of way of paying tribute or going the whole ten yards with the influence or call it the originality of our sound. If any band should do a folk album in Swedish it is FALCONER.

– Due to this, did anything change during the composition process? Was it easy?
Yes and no. Writing lyrics in Swedish is harder because it often just sound silly or pretentious. Musically it was a bit easier since many songs are not built up of verse, chorus etc. It’s more like riffs upon riffs in no particular order. But often I slipped into the usual melodies and ideas which maybe didn’t fit the folk touch I wanted for the album so I often had to stop and do it over again. The easiest songs were the traditional songs which had most of the stuff already there, just for us to adapt to fit FALCONER.

– I guess some people may wonder is this is, somehow, a new path you will follow from now on…
No it’s not. I would guess that the next album will have no Swedish lyrics at all and be less folk oriented. I’ve gotten this out of my system now and next time I want to do something in another direction but that’s to far ahead so I don’t know what it will be.

– You recorded the album at the Andy La Rocque’s Sonic Train studios. How did everything come up and how did it go? Are you happy with the final result?
We were as usual very content with his work and this time we got exactly the sound we wanted, for the last album I thought the sound became a bit too polished. So this time we wanted something more raw and analog sound. Infact we all felt a bit unprepared before we entered the studio this time but for some reason everything went smoother than before.

– You have always worked with Metal Blade. What does this label provide you?
A studio budget. That’s pretty much what we desire. They don’t have any demands or wishes to interfere in the process, but then again what can they demand from a band that is doing  music without profit.

– I see you have confirmed a show but, aren’t there any touring plans to support «Armod» live?
No and no. The London show was done in 2009. As usual there are no tours since that would mean we would have to change vocalist because of his schedule. Festivals might happen in the future again but not in 2011. There has to be the right moment for us and a good proposition to even consider rehearsing the old songs again. I consider us to be a studio band that occasionally plays live. The passion for me has always been the creative process. Being nervous, trying to play the songs without mistakes and upon that behaving like a fucking circus monkey on stage is not my ambition if there is not a very important show or interesting in another way.

– And finally, what are the band’s near future-plans?
To take a year off after recording a music video for the track “Vid rosornas grav” both in Swedish and in English.

– That’s all from my side, thank you once more for taking the time. If you now want to add some final words, last lines are yours.
From the Swedish version of “Mago de Oz” to the fans in Spain we wish you enjoy the new album although you won’t understand a shit of the lyrics. Hope to see you some time in the future on a festival stage in Spain. Olé!