HAMMERFALL 

Live, Loud, Ludwigsburg 

 

When HAMMERFALL brought the MHP Arena in Ludwigsburg to a quake on February 15, 2020, the world was still in order and nobody could have guessed what would happen only a few days later and has been determining our lives ever since. For many of those present it was the last Heavy Metal show before the Corona-conditioned lockdown, now "Live Against The World" is released for posterity and shows HAMMERFALL in absolute top form. Together with guitarist OSCAR DRONJAK we remember this memorable, sunny and cold winter day.     

 

Oscar, how was your day so far? 

 

Shortly before seven o'clock, our foster dog Bella woke me up and wanted to go outside and experience something. Accordingly, I was awake early and was able to do some things in my studio that I had planned to do. 

 

How do you deal with the current Corona situation yourself, has it changed a lot in your life?  

 

My everyday life has not changed too much. I have always paid attention to hygiene and I always had my hand disinfectant with me, for example at festivals. The crucial point is not being able to play live or attend concerts. Apart from that I rarely go out and spend a lot of time at home between tours, I have more of that now and had a great summer, with far more time for family and friends than I would have had during a normal festival summer. Anyway, we were lucky to finish our European tour before the pandemic broke out. I try not to drive myself crazy and I enjoy my life, no matter what the circumstances. So if I can't be on stage, I just do other things that I enjoy. Apart from that, I believe that we can survive this pandemic if we all play by the rules. 

 

When Corona broke out, things went on relatively normally and without too many restrictions in Sweden at the beginning, while most countries experienced their first lockdown. When did you realize that this virus was completely changing our lives?

 

I honestly didn't realize at first how long it would haunt us. I was aware that this virus is dangerous and that many infected people will die from it, but I assumed that during the summer everything would be back to normal. The Swedish government made recommendations rather than bans. They appealed much more to common sense instead of completely shutting down social life and closing down restaurants etc. However, just as many companies went directly to work from home through their employees, distance rules were introduced etc.

 

And suddenly toilet paper became scarce! 

 

This is totally ridiculous, but it also affected Sweden. Of course people here can see what is going on abroad and there were clips of people fighting over the last toilet paper. Accordingly, the supermarkets here were also like empty! So there must be households here, too, which have entire rooms full of toilet paper. Occasionally the rice or noodles were sold out for a few days, but there were always replenishments and people soon realized that a lot of it was just hysteria and panic mongering. 

 

You were also creative during this time and now you do your own karaoke show every Saturday night on your Instagram account, which is so natural and relaxed that people get infected by your joy, open a beer and like to watch. Is that your answer to the question, how to make sure that nothing can spoil your fun in life? 

 

In any case! For me it is definitely a new way of expressing myself and having fun while I am forced to stay at home. I love karaoke and have been doing it privately for many years, especially when it comes to New Year's Eve. During that time we always meet at my studio, party and sing karaoke until we can't stand anymore. This has been a fixed ritual for years and since I got bored at some point, I started doing it again. My wife Olivia finally had the idea to make a live stream out of it, which I was reluctant to do at first because I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to hear me sing. I started with 3-4 songs, but had so much fun that it got longer and longer and became an integral part of the Saturday evening. 

 

It's fun to watch you, do you spontaneously remember some funny stories during this time? 

 

From time to time my son Adrian comes into the picture, jumps and holds his children's guitar in his hand. He's totally into 'Balls To The Wall' and keeps asking for the title. It makes me very proud to see that he enjoys it and loves songs that have been with me all my life. Meanwhile I also have many regular listeners who write days before that they can't wait until Saturday night. Among them is a Russian, for example, who always accurately suggests songs that I am 100% in the mood for, because my song list is already very much based on the suggestions of the audience. 

I learned a lot about my voice in the past weeks, not only that when I'm drunk I care less and less about the vocal technique. The most difficult thing for me is to sing songs from W.A.S.P. for example, because Blackie's voice is constantly high and I usually don't have much of a voice afterwards. Singing his songs is much more difficult than for example songs from King Diamond, which are no problem at all. But that's probably because I have been singing his songs for decades. It's funny how you always judge yourself, because I look at it myself later and often I was of the opinion that I sang certain songs in the madness totally well, but it was downright awful, hahaha. 

 

Meanwhile bands play streaming concerts, in front of seated and limited crowds, in front of spectators in cars or beach chairs. What do you think about that, especially if it should accompany us in the form for a longer time? 

 

I think it's terrible and I hope that this will all be just a short term temporary solution. A Heavy Metal concert lives from the mood that prevails in the audience. When I now think about the fact that in front of me are all the visitors, I prefer not to play a show, at least for the time being. I saw the days photos of Destruction playing a seated concert and it looked really strange. Of course you always have visitors on stage who prefer to sit rather than stand, but I can't imagine that you get the same kick as a band on stage. For a single concert after a long time maybe yes, but I could not imagine to tour permanently under these conditions. Metal is not lounge music that you perceive in the background, sitting and talking to your neighbor. We were also offered streaming shows, but since everyone is doing it now, we turned them down. In the beginning it might have been something special, but I think in the meantime the fans are saturated with it, so the offer has decreased. I myself watched the Dream Evil show they streamed live from Studio Fredman, but it was more like a rehearsal room concert with good sound. We decided for us that we're not going to do that for the time being. If you want to see and hear us, you can now do it on "Live Against The World" with full production and a gigantic audience.  

 

On "Live Against The World" you immortalized your concert from Ludwigsburg on February 15th this year. How do you remember that day back? 

 

I fixed everything on this day and prepared myself in every imaginable way. In the two weeks before, I had also drunk a maximum of half a glass of wine after the show and refrained from any parties. After the Ludwigsburg show I didn't overdo it, although there were a few beers every now and then. It was important to me that my performance on that day was perfect. The timing in the middle of the tour was perfect, because that way we were all very well-rehearsed and also not burnt out. Among other things, we had numbers in the set that we had never played live before or hadn't had in the set for a long time. At the time of recording everything was in place, we were focused and nothing was left to chance. After the show I was very satisfied and could say to myself: You couldn't have done it better. In retrospect, there were only two little things that I had to touch up because I was too anxious at that moment, which meant that the sound was not in sync with Pontus' guitar. At the end of the day it's also a live show that doesn't have to be 100% perfect - if someone wants that they have to listen to the studio albums. However, I can honestly say that we as a band have never sounded better. 

 

Why did you decide in advance to choose Ludwigsburg and the MHP Arena there as the location for your recording, especially since this was your first gig there and it was new territory for you? 

 

There was a lot to be said for it, including the fact that although it is a large arena, it also guarantees intimacy, which allowed us to be very close to the audience. But it also has to do with the city of Ludwigsburg itself, because as a metal fan you inevitably associate the city with the Rockfabrik, where we played unforgettable concerts at the beginning of our career, and later visited them for after-show parties. That the Rockfabrik had to close down hurt us to hear. 

 

We even met at your first concert, on the Raven tour, at the Rockfabrik, where I introduced you to Andy von Stormwitch after the show.

 

Right, now I remember! Joacim and I were frozen, in respect and awe. So it meant something to us to record the concert in Germany on the one hand and in Ludwigsburg on the other hand. It felt right. Our previous two live releases were both recorded in Sweden, so it was overdue to immortalize something in Germany, where we have had the most loyal and faithful fans since the very first day. We have been doing this for 23 years now and it was in Germany that our career began, so this is an overriding statement. 

 

On this last tour you took the daring step from the biggest halls, into the arenas. It worked, because the venues were full and made this tour the best visited headliner tour of you. Was it not too risky for you in the beginning? 

 

It was risky and we had to make this decision before the ticket sales. I honestly admit that I think very conservatively in this point and prefer to play it safe. Joacim, on the other hand, is the visionary who always has the next step in mind and is much less afraid of risks. He thinks in different categories, which is why he made this decision together with our booking agency. When we received the first pre-sales figures, we knew that we had made the right decision. 

 

In the Stuttgart/Ludwigsburg area you had your 2.000 visitors for years, now there were over 3.500 fans. How do you explain this enormous leap? 

 

Southern Germany has always been a stronghold for us, but I have no rational explanation for it. The fans certainly appreciate our consistency and the quality of our albums. "Dominion" received great feedback all around and certainly contributed to it. Also, the fans know that their high expectations of a HammerFall show are being met. We give them a good time and enjoy the same on stage. 

 

You always have very strong support bands on every tour, this time Serious Black and Battle Beast. A perfect combination? 

 

Absolutely! We had Serious Black in our luggage before and knew them, but Battle Beast was new and is also a young band that appeals to a younger generation of metal fans. On top they have another damn good singer on board, which also gave us the opportunity to perform the duet with Noora on our song 'Second To One' live. So it was a double win for us and another special feature for the fans. 

 

You also had enough specials in the set. The set is teeming with songs you've never played before or haven't played in a long time. 

 

This is another reason why we wanted to immortalize this tour. When we started rehearsing we realized that we had at least one song from each album on the setlist, without consciously choosing it in advance. In the end we had a colorful mixture of new songs, classics and surprises. For one or the other it was perhaps too many surprises, that is then my fault. For example, I really wanted to play 'Natural High' again, because I love this piece. It was similar with 'Keep The Flame Burning', one of my favorite songs. We all agreed on 'Redemption' and thought it was a great idea, especially since we had never played it live before. 

 

Redemption' is from "Infected", possibly the most underrated album of you? 

 

I guess that's true. I think that the album got way too much criticism that it didn't deserve. There were mosquitoes as a mole, although the album had a lot of strong songs. I also feel that "No Sacrifice, No Victory" is one of our strongest albums, at least in my personal Top 3 list and every fan should know about us. But I can also understand this, because I often have similar blinkers on many of my favorite bands and I only appreciate some albums much later. For example, I hated Europe as a teenager, just because they were so popular. Jesper then persuaded me to see them live at "Prisoners In Paradise" and since then I have never said anything negative about Europe, a fantastic band. 

 

You celebrated another anniversary on the tour: 20 years of "Renegade", which you honored with a great medley. But hand on heart: Don't you sometimes feel like playing the whole number? 

 

That's where you bring up something (laughs), because actually I've always hated medleys and for many years I've said with conviction: We'll never play a medley. As a fan, I loved it when I couldn't hear the whole piece live. Accept did that for a while with 'Restless & Wild' and 'Son Of A Bitch' and suddenly the best part was gone; I hated it. At HammerFall we started with instrumental medleys to give Joacim a short break during this time, then album anniversaries came up again and again and our catalog grew with every new longplayer. So in the meantime I have come to terms with it and made my peace with it. 

 

Since "Dominion" has been on the hump for over a year now, the obligatory question at the end: How far are you currently with the follow-up work? 

 

Actually we are already very far advanced, because we already started writing songs during the last tour. One number was actually written in Ludwigsburg and therefore has the working title 'Ludwigsburg', other numbers were written during our American tour with Sabaton. Joacim has been working on new songs for four months now and together we are already approaching the end of the creative songwriting phase before going into the studio.  

 

Markus Wosgien