Interview: One Man Army and the Undead Quartet - February 2011

Interview with

Johan Linstrand (vocals) of One Man Army and the Undead Quartet

Ever since THE CROWN’s original break up, Johan Linstrand has been hard at work with his other original project, One Man Army and the Undead Quartet. Of course, “one man” doesn’t really describe this band as Linstrand has plenty of talented musicians to help him out, and album after album they’ve successfully created a merge between melodic death metal and thrash. Now, with a new album coming up, OMA hopes to shatter all expectations of fans so far, old and new. I got a chance to talk with Lindstrand about the new album, ‘The Dark Epic’, OMA’S history, and his ideas on trying to make the best of the metal and business world in general.

Reflections of Darkness (RoD): Hello, Johan. How goes life these days with the ‘One Man Army’ and in general?
Johan Lindstrand (JL): Hey! Everything is just great. We have a new album coming out now which we have very high hopes on of course and I’ve gotten myself a new dog which feels very great.:-)

RoD: So it seems after many years of album after album, the group finally took some time to craft their “masterpiece”. What can fans expect from the upcoming album that will blow their minds compared to past works?
JL: Well, the first reason for taking so long with this album is that long-time member Mikael left the band in early 2009. After that we had some shows booked where we had to use a session member and at the same time we tried to find a permanent replacement for Mikael. So this took like a year before we really got into the songwriting process for real and finally came up with 9 awesome songs with a new line-up. The fans can expect more raw aggression compared to the more melodic stuff from before. They will definitely recognize themselves because we have still got the basic Army-sound even if we have pushed the limits a bit more and done something more difficult and interesting at the same time. The songs are longer. There are more riffs and basically more death metal than before. At least if you ask me. The thing is that we wanted to change ourselves a bit since we were sort of a new band with new songwriters. We have a different musical approach at the same time we have got ridden of General Grim on the artwork and replaced him with the Grim Reaper. It’s simply more brutal!

RoD: Personally, I feel this will be an epic album after hearing it. Do you think that OMA really pushed themselves and experimented a bit to create ‘The Dark Epic’, or has this been something that has been in the works for some time and just now felt like right time to unleash it?
JL: We were definitely discussing this issue as a band before deciding on the final 9 songs. Jonas, the new guy came up with a lot of songs and in the end we had like 14 songs to chose from and this was a great feeling to be able to sort out those that didn’t quite fit our idea at the moment. We were kind of tired of doing typical 3-4 minute songs that included more or less the same arrangements so we wanted this album to be more like a challenge to listen to. Personally I love epic songs by other bands where new stuff pops up all the time which makes the listener want to end up listening a bit more ‘cause he gets thrown away by the ride. At least those that are well done, like the old Metallica classics like ‘Orion’, ‘Master…’ and ‘Justice…’ just to name a few. You cannot get tired of songs like these even if you try to. But now I’m not saying that we are in the same league but this is the feeling we try to produce on this album anyway. Like it or not, hehe.

RoD: So what is the ideal concept behind this album… if any at all?
JL: There isn’t a concept behind anything. Well, all songs have death in common of course. Although I feel that there is a red-line through it all even if the songs doesn’t deal with the same topics. You can really feel that the songs are connected and you have 9 songs that really fit together. In my eyes there are no fillers here. Just pure sense!

RoD: Are there any particular tracks that deserve special mention, either with how you came up for the title / lyrics, or how the songwriting process went?
JL: My personal favourite is ‘Sandman Apocalypse’. It’s one of those songs that really grabs a hold of you and delivers massive music in form of a true rollercoaster ride! It’s like a big drama with speed, darkness and heavy instrumental parts. The lyrics are something I’m really proud of and that goes for the whole album. It’s much darker than the other stuff on the previous albums; more serious and more death metal for sure. ‘Sandman...’ is about a killer who’s involved in a car crash and ends up in a coma as a result. In Sandman’s world he meets all his victims. And a war of the souls begins and the dark side wants to pull him down in hell and finish him off since he deserves nothing else at the same time people are trying to bring him back in the real life. And a question is being asked. Should we really try so hard to save a brutal criminal who has taken so many lives? Or should we just let him face his destiny? It sounds a bit screwed up but I like this kind of feeling, like something I would like to see on the screen.

RoD: As the vocalist of the group, and former vocalist of The Crown, are you more satisfied with your work in OMA ever since its creation in 2004, or do you miss being with your former band mates? The Crown did go on hiatus for some time after 2004 and everyone went on to their other projects; not many know why. But, if one can listen between the two, there are a ton of similarities, so there is often speculation about a strong connection to your past ties in THE CROWN…
JL: Of course there are still strong ties because I was the original front man in THE CROWN and we did a few awesome albums together. And without that band there would never have been a One Man Army.  Musically I don’t think there are that much similarities but since my voice is there people of course react like there were.  But people can believe anything they won’t. It’s all fine by me. In my opinion there are now 2 great bands instead of one. All I want is to get recognition for a good Army album. Not the former Crown singers new project blab la. That was ages ago. My best work ever was on ‘Deathrace King’ with THE CROWN but I’m happier with being in ONE MAN ARMY.

RoD: OMA is basically your creation; do you prefer a lot of collaboration between the members or is it more of a solitary process? When you started up in 2004, has your main ideas behind the purpose of band still adhered to this day, or have things changed over time with either input from fans, life, industry, etc.?
JL: Yeah, I started on my own and I wrote 90% of the first album. But after that album was released more songwriters has joined the process of making good Army music. My original idea was to write everything even if I had other band members but I quickly changed that into this being a democracy with 5 individuals where everyone has equal power. Well, maybe I have 1% more power, haha. Nah, just joking! The main purpose has always been to make the best possible music and be happy with the situation and this isn’t always so easy. There are tours to be done. People have families. We’re getting older and we don’t earn shit from this but we’re still quite happy so we’ll stick with this for a few more years I guess.

RoD: You’ve been involved with metal for a long, long time. How have you seen it change and how has those changes helped influence OMA’s style, or better or worse? What do you think has been its greatest gains from the time that you were first introduced to it up till 2011?
JL: When we started THE CROWN 20 years ago death metal was at its peak and it kind of stayed there for 3-4 years. But then after ´95 or so I don’t think that any classic death metal albums has been released. Of course there have been good albums but nothing I would bring down to my grave with. Bands started to develop themselves into something they couldn’t handle, like Metallica, and the whole metal scene got more and more weird. That’s why I don’t bother to check out new music anymore. Instead I still listen to my old favourites with Kiss, Metallica, Death, Morbid Angel and Slayer just to name a few but now and then something cool and new comes up of course that inspires me to keep going. The worst thing that happened to Army was after the tour with Children Of Bodom in 2006 we were so inspired by the more melodic stuff and we tried out some really bad shit on ‘Error in Evolution’. Stuff that wasn’t supposed to be recorded by a band like us. I don’t regret anything but I would love to have done that album again so we could have done stuff differently.

RoD: As a vocalist, you have the talent of keeping your voice strong after so many years of work in both OMA and The Crown. How do you preserve your voice after so long, or has advances in recording technology made things easier (at least in the studio)?
JL: Now with ‘The Dark Epic…’ I think it’s stronger than in years but I don’t know. When you’re on tour for example it’s always very hard. There’s always tours in wintertime so you always getting a cold so tours can be fun but also hell for your voice. But I don’t sing as good as I did 10 years ago. It’s kind of worn out but it still sounds pretty good. Yeah, technology can be a blessing sometimes.  But, on this new album I sing everything as I would on a live show. No ‘cuts and pastes’ and no fixing afterwards.  I did a lot of that on Grim Tales and I hated it. Why I did it?, well, we were way to picky with the result and on ‘The Dark Epic…’ we wanted more of a raw live feeling as it’s supposed to be and I find the final result way more better. Also all backing vocals was this time done by the bass player Robert like he would have done live. On the earlier work I did the backing stuff as well.

RoD: Do you find live shows difficult to perform vocally at due to the lack of technological advances that a studio provides while still trying to perform genuinely? Do you often wonder if you will have to hang the voice up early at some point, or do you think you will be able to do this for a long time to come?
JL: I will definitely try a couple of more years but nowadays I don’t push myself into doing stuff live exactly as it sounds on record. I try to sing more relaxed to be able to go on for longer. It’s live and the decibel is way up there. People hardly ever hear correctly when standing in the audience so it would be stupid to even try to sound like you do on the album.  You want to sound good but you need to adapt to the live feeling where you try to connect with the people instead of doing karaoke with your own songs.

RoD: Do you prefer live shows over studio work? For a time in the past it seemed like you guys were in and out of the studio year after year with new material. Now with ‘Dark Epic’ there seems to be a bit more of a gap in between album creations for space, ideas, creativity, peace of mind, etc…
JL: Both worlds are very cool. When you think you have new killer material you can’t wait until the recording session and when that album finally comes out you can’t wait on bringing the stuff to the stage. We will probably have a bigger gap in between albums from now on. In order to have the best possible material we need to stop a minute and focus on what we’re doing instead of rushing into something like we have done so many times before. And there’s extremely important to be able to recharge the batteries from time to time. We’re like 35 years old now and music isn’t everything... We need to make more people happy and not just each other. 

RoD: Does life outside your musical world- internal or external- influence a lot of what you do in OMA or do you tend to drift ‘between worlds’? How do you balance to two, either if it is other jobs, family, etc?
JL: We try to combine the two worlds as good as we can but as I said earlier. We will take care of ourselves more from now on. We can’t leave everything behind and go out on tour for 7 weeks anymore. I mean, there’s no cash coming into our pockets and that’s of course a big reason in thinking twice in what you’re doing. Family comes first. Then we create wicked death metal.

RoD: So what’s the next step? The epic is already out there and the fans will most likely be interested all over again- at least those that felt the past albums were repetitive. Any idea on how OMA will continue to evolve and keep the fans hungry for more?
JL: The next step is to hopefully gain some interest from the festival promoters and to do some cool summer shows and then we’ll probably do like a 3 week tour in the fall. I haven’t read that much reviews but so far there has been mainly very positive reactions so hopefully both old and new fans wants to see us live.

RoD: Do you often find it difficult to merge your own ideas with how OMA should be (with band mates’ ideas) along with the thousands of comments you may get each month through email / reviews on how OMA should sound? Where do you find the balance to please not only yourself, but the politics of fans and the labels who sign you?
JL: We have democracy in the band which means that all ideas are welcome and in the end we can hopefully put together a masterpiece driven by all 5 of us even if one guy is writing the basics. That’s how it always work in this band; we don’t care what other people say. Some love ‘Error...’ and some love ‘Grim Tales’. Who should we listen too? That’s the beauty of being on an independent label and a band that doesn’t sell albums, haha. You don’t need any guidelines to do a follow-up to your previous multimillion selling albums because there aren’t any. We do what we want to do and if that puts us in the gutter, so be it.

RoD: Speaking of labels, you’ve been pretty comfortable with Massacre Records for some time after you switched from Nuclear Blast. How’s the relationship with them?
JL: It’s a very healthy relationship. They do their best to promote our albums and we trust them. Hopefully they can do some good stuff with this new album. The previous album didn’t quite sell as good as the 2 first ones but that can also be the switch form NB to Massacre. Maybe ‘The Dark Epic’ will do better.

RoD: Last question. Despite a lot of grief you may have gotten from fans for whatever reason, there has also been a lot of praise. What’s the nicest/ craziest thing a fan has done for the band that has really made you pause and say “Yep, I’m definitely doing something right here with OMA!”
JL: The best thing a guy like me can experience is when another guy is making a tattoo of your own bands artwork. Then you can stop and say. Damn! Our creation will be a part of this guys life as long as he lives… That’s total dedication and he really deserves to be put up there with the top 5 fans. Maybe even at number one!

RoD: Thanks again Johan for all the insight and personal reflection on OMA and ‘The Dark Epic.’ I really think the group hit the nail on the head for creating the right metal album to suit your sound perfectly!
JL: Thank you! Have a great 2011 and see you in the future.

Cheers,
Johan