1. Hello J.! It´s really nice to make interview with you for our small country. I think, it´s the first one for Czech republic. Am I right?
Hi! Well, Sweden is a pretty small country as well,however I can´t think of any swedish town that possess the same beauty as Prague do...yes, this must be the first interview from the Czech republic. I´m eager to answer it!
2. You are founding member of PLUTONIUM and recently also the only one. But the line-up for „One Size Fits All“ consisted of three members. What was the reason for changes?
The story goes like this: after the recordings of “One Size Fits All” the atmosphere in the line-up was very strained. Personally I had a really hard time during the recordings. Noone except me hoped for continuing the band, but I tried to keep the banner high. The other guys had already leaved when the album was out but I didn´t care. I had already found another person to help me out (a great person actually) but then I got a message where he told me he probably couldn´t cut it since his abilities to handle the strings has decreased in quality since he hadn´t practiced for real for a couple of months...no hard feelings, I appreciate his honesty. However I had to make a decision....and the decision was, I will continue Plutonium as a one man project until I find persons that I think will fit. But I had too much music inside of me (and still have) that had to be released. The other members were more like session members, since I thought of doing some live gigs. After a while it turned out that those guys weren´t interested in live gigs at all. This and some other difficulties between us led to the split.
3. Now you are working alone. Is that the best possible way for you?
For the moment, yes. I do not have to wait for others, I can record whenever I want. But I have to admit it is a little bit boring to not have another point of view, I usually get it the way I want, but how challenging is that really? For coming recordings I will have some guest appearances, I have already secured one person for making some vocals, and he has a great voice. I guess it will make PLUTONIUM to develop in yet another direction. There is one guest on „Unintelligent Design“ from the new album, mr. Ahlgren, one of my best friends, who made quite a trippy synthesizer solo on that song...
4. A lot of reviews of debut album mentioned a band Thorns and compared your music to Snorre´s. So my question is, how much do you know Thorns and were they inspiration for you during composition of debut album?
Well, I never got my hands on the demos from them, but of course I heard ”Aerie descent” and it is still a great song. The CD is amazing, I loved it when it was released and I still do. It has a very mechanical feeling that really stretch out for you and grab you. So yes, one could say I was influenced by Thorns. However, that is only one influence, although an important one.
5. Four long years passed and you are back with second album called „Devilmentertainment Non-Stop“. It´s really weird title. Can you describe what listener can imagine about it?
You can still hear it is Plutonium, but also a different take on the sound than on ”One size fits all”. That´s what I hope at least. Nine songs which vary a lot in attitude and intensity. The word devilmentertainment is a combination of “devilment” and ”entertainment”. So the listener can expect something both devilish and entertaining...perhaps? The lyrics to that song is mirroring some things that happened around the world when I wrote it (if you study the lyric there are certain keys to find…) and also my view upon the world and how it is portrayed by the media in the western society. I started with a slightly ironical and cynical indifferent view but slowly changed into a more depressed and misanthropic outlook (without becoming a misanthrope, since I do love the people I really respect). When I started with the album I thought of it as some kind of cathartic process, but as time went by, everything just got worse.
6. Even on new material we can still hear some Thorns‘ influence, but not as much as it was on debut. Can I know your opinion on differences between these two albums? As from the music side and also from lyrical and ideologic.
I hope the new material show everyone that although it is still Plutonium, our sound has got deeper and wider in all aspects. The soundscape is in my eyes a bit more sophisticated than it was on „One size fits all“ which was a concious decision – I never wanted to do the same thing twice! I have pushed the borders for what I can do with Plutonium compared to the debut, and I will do it again when it´s time to record the newer material. Lyricwise I have evolved I guess: on the debut it was mostly about the totalitarian systém described in 1984 and „Brave new world“, while „Devilmentertainment non-stop“ also deals with these issues, I decided to let more personal reflections and philosophies take place.
7. Your music seems to be like a soundtrack of misery of heavy industry after some world revolution. Militant sounding has a very cold feeling which causes hopeless effect on listener. Is this your intention to catch listener attention?
Interesting interpretation! That kind of picture has never appeared to me, but I think it is very interesting to hear your thoughts on it. But you are partly right, I do want to bring a feeling of a cold world where you can trust no-one but yourself. The most important thing for me, except for writing powerful and memorable songs, is to bring some kind of feeling that grips you and never leaves you. I can´t know if I have succeeded, but hopefully some people enjoy it. Remember though: it may feel like a grey world that come across in the music, but there are always millions nuances of grey....
8. Next question is obvious. Can you describe your writting process? I know, that one-man bands have different way to make music, than ordinary multiple-member bands. Especially in this kind of music.
Often I have a fragment of music, a riff or a melody or just a rhythm that I feel I have to work on. I try to play it and find out if it is good enough to become the fundament of a song, or if it is a part that may do best as a complementary part...often I start by playing the song on my guitar all alone. If it works then, it will probably work with a couple of extra guitars, bass, drums and different industrial stuff! But I can come up with a song in pretty different ways. The basics to „A tribute to the tools...“ was actually created when I fooled around and tried my recording equipment for the first time, when I was supposed to begin with „One size fits all“ and just made a test recording. I saved that piece of recording and began thinking of the riffs and there you go....A song like „Peace keeper“ was created in front of the computer, but I guess that goes without saying, thinking of that special sound that songs has. So to answer your question: mostly I just grab my guitar and sit down and try out stuff, but I try to vary my ways of creating stuff.
9. And from songwritting to work with sound. New album have definitely better sound and production than debut album. That´s even more interesting, because „Devilmentertainment Non-Stop“ was self-released. Are you responsible for the productions yourself or did someone help you?
I have produced both albums all by myself. At „One size fits all“ I wanted a more noisy sound, and also my knowledge of recording, mixing and editing was not like it is today. So I guess I learned a lot which I turned into practice when it was time to record „Devilmentertainment non-stop“! This time I also wanted a clearer more complex sound. I think I had more details in the songs on this album that I couldn´t drown in a fuzzy and noisy soundscape. The only thing I have gotten help with is the mastering, which was made both times by Peter Bjärgö, known from Arcana. He did a great job and have added that little extra push to both my releases!
10. And what was reason for self-release? Nobody was interested to released it? Or you wanted to have everything under your control?
Well, after the third label in a row never got back to me or gave any sign of life (they weren´t the worst although, but then I was very sick of the situation) I thought „fuck it, why not do it yourself?“. So I started to look around and counted the costs and so on and got a good deal with the pressing plant and after that, everything just went as planned. I mean I had waited one and a half year to get the damn thing released, and it took like one month to gather all material, send it to the pressing and getting the albums. When I got the albums I thought like: what if I had done this one year ago... If any label will approach me for future releases I will of course listen to what they have to say, but I will be very careful about wasting my time like I´ve done with this release! Of course it is good to have everything under control, as far as that goes...it took at least one month before the album turned up on illegal downloading sites and file-sharing sites. I did count with that though, I can only hope people who like the music see the value in owning the album.
11. Both albums have strange album artwork. Who is responsible for it and can you shortly describe meaning of both artworks?
It is my friend Magnus Hagerman who made both covers and layouts for the album. Well, „One size fits all“ is pretty self-explanatory, the slogan together with the gallow...just a piece of dark humour really! „Devilmentertainment non-stop“ has a hanger made of barbwire on the cover. A hanger was a very common tool for poor girls in the beginning of 1900 to use when making an abortion which was prohibited back in those days...and the swedish word for hanger is the same as gallow, so you have a certain ambiguos connection between the two covers. Magnus is as I said a good friend and he has been doing different kind of artworks in different contexts, but I guess I am the only metal-related person he´s been working with. And I like that, since I want to break from the traditional metal cover. Nothing wrong about Manowar stuff and so on, but I want something different. I have recently becoming more interested in graphic design and related things, so I have now a clearer view upon such concerns. I have also discovered the movies of Kenneth Anger which I guess will have some influence on the possible coming releases... If you are interested in the art of Magnus Hagerman you could check his site out here.
12. I know, that playing live with one-man project is nearly impossible. I suppose, that live performing is passé for you. Or am I wrong?
Well, I would like to play live, but it would take to much time with rehearsing and finding the right musicians and so on. For the moment it seems impossible but maybe sometime everything will turn out alright, and then I will hit the stages.
13. Unless you’re a world famous musician, it is not possible to make money with music. So what are you doing for living? Do you have time for any other hobbies apart from music?
I have a regular job like everyone else, I could never make a living out of Plutonium, that would be completely impossible! However, I´ve now began studying web design and digital graphics, on university level, parallelly to my job and the band. I do this for getting more independent in all aspects, but it´s somewhat hard to get time for everything. Anyway, I like to have different kind of things going on, it certainly inspires me! Otherwise I spend all of my time with my wife, and although she isn´t into metal she like music, movies, books – pretty much the same I like! So that´s my life in a nutshell really!
14. I dont want to bore you with questions. So this is the end of our nice conversation. I wish you all the best and if you have something on mind, please use this space. Thanks and best!
You do not bore me at all! I am thankful for your interest and support. If someone´s interested in knowing more about Plutonium, just visit our websites or drop me a mail! Cheers to you! And by the way, MASTER´S HAMMER is definitely one of the best bands ever!
Plutonium official site
Plutonium twitter
Plutonium @ MySpace
