Interview with
Joakim Montelius
re-shaping their sky (part one)
"And after all we are quite happy that we are still on the ground, releasing a new album we’re happy with on a new label and so on."
After seeing Depeche Mode in Hamburg two nights in a row, including aftershow parties and all this, I took the chance to speak with Mr. Joakim Montelius of Covenant fame at the luxurious “Hotel Reichshof”, right in the center of Hamburg. After a long promotional day for Montelius I was the last of quite a few personal interviews on this day, This, and the fact that it was rather ‘longtime-fan meets band member’(actually even a long-time fan who wasn’t that happy with Covenant’s new album “Skyshaper” at first) than the usual ‘journalist meets musician’ thing made quite a difference. Mr. Montelius, by the way one of the best dressed men in music, was the perfect gentleman as usual and also condoned that I was still a little exhausted after a few stressful but happy days in Hamburg. So we had a very nice chat about the new album, Covenant’s problems since the release of 2002’s “Northern Light”, Depeche Mode and many many other things.
Hello Joakim, how are you doing?
Montelius: “Oh, I’m doing fine. It’s been a long day and I still have to do a few telephone interviews later on. But I’m enjoying myself with the prospect of having finally a new album out and the respective tour.”
Did you happen to read my review for “Skyshaper” on Reflections of Darkness which wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the album in general?
Montelius: “I actually did read it, and found it quite interesting! And don’t worry! I won’t kill you for being a little critical. [laughs] I prefer honest opinions, anyway. And perhaps you have a good point in the sense that not everything on the album is in its right place. There’s quite a varietey, you know?”
Yeah, but that’s basically great. But when you take a look at various forums on the net you discover that “Skyshaper” gets mixed reactions so far…
Montelius: “But that doesn’t worry me much. That’s always the case when we put out a new album. Maybe because we always try something new and something that’s timeless. It’s been the same with “Northern Light” which is now regarded as one of our best among fans.”
That some people already comment on “Skyshaper” means also that they already got the album from some source. Obviously many people downloaded it illegally.
Montelius: “Well, to be honest I don’t mind it when the promotional version is available on the net. You know, the one which has the voice saying “this is a promotional copy…” in all of the songs. Downloading the full, original album is different. Apart from the fact that it does harm us financially it feels wrong for me as an artist because I want people to experience the full package including cover art work and stuff. We have a brilliant booklet this time, by the way. I’m sure you will be blown away!”
I’m curious. And if people at the shows singalong the line “this is a promotional copy!” at the forthcoming you will know that those bastards just downloaded the promo version instead of buying the real thing.
Montelius: [laughs] “Yeah! That would be funny! But there’s hope that most people will buy the final product as it’s worth it in my opinion. We spent 14 months recording “Skyshaper”, after all!!
14 months is quite some time! Does a Covenant album always take so long to record, and did you have breaks inbetween or did you work on it constantly?”
Montelius: “We were working seven days a week on it and Eskil was literally living in the studio! We had a few shows inbetween but we were working on “Skyshaper” all the time. It’s a lot of trial and error, you know? There are some people who are able to put exactly into sound what they’re hearing in their minds. We don’t, and the creative process takes a lot of discussions anyway. We had 20 to 30 songs to start with and some of them simply didn’t get used. It’s a long process. The song ‘Brave New World’ for example exists in 150 different versions!! It’s hard to decide when a song is finished and sounds perfect. Somehow a song is never finished - you just have to feel when it’s the right time to let it free. To answer your other question, it took us six months to finish ‘Sequencer’ and ‘Europa’, a whole year for ‘United States Of Mind’ and also 14 months to record ‘Northern Light’. You see, it’s a long process and a lot of hard work! I can only hope that people see and appreciate that.”
I got the promotional copy as well to prepare for this interview. The sleeve unfortunately doesn’t tell who wrote for lyrics for which song. We all know that Eskil also contributes lyrically.
Montelius: “Yes, I’m the “chief lyrics writer” as the sleeve says but Eskil wrote the lyrics to “The Men” and “Pulse”, which is incidentally a true story!"
So you wrote the lyrics to “Happy Man”! You know that this is the song on “Skyshaper” which I like least. I just can’t get into it at all, it doesn’t work for me. That is, at least musically as I got the point of the lyrics, and I appreciate them. But musically it doesn’t do much for me, I’m afraid. And I think it destroys a little the flow of the album as the third song on “Skyshaper”.
Montelius: “But that’s what “Happy Man” is supposed to do, breaking the usual flow to push things forward. I think it’s a very very beautiful song and I will bet a big bottle of Jägermeister that “Happy Man” will be one of the most remembered Covenant songs in 10 years time!”
Okay, I accept the bet as I don’t think so! (And now that this has been publiced this bet is official! ;-) )
Although I felt disappointed at first I have to admit that “Skyshaper” is a real grower. Especially the second half of the album contains some brilliant moments like “Spindrift”, “Greather than the Sun” or the album closer “The World Is Growing Loud”. It takes a while to discover the beauty of it.
Montelius: “That’s what I said before, the album will grow. Especially “The World Is Growing Loud” is a very special song. By the way, Eskil recorded the basic rhythm patterns with a little toy drum kit for kids. We had it re-recorded with a professional drummer but that sounded shit and didn’t work at all. So we used the initial sounds of the toy kit and Eskil worked four days on it to pump it up. You see, it’s again trial and error and just about catching the right moment. And “The World Is Growing Loud” has perhaps the saddest lyrics I ever wrote. Its working title was “The Death Song” – not about the death of a specific person but rather the death of Covenant! There was a time last year when I thought our band will be no longer…”
A quite scaring thought! What did you make think that??
Montelius: “Well, many things. As you most probably know our label K2 was closed by EMI in the middle of the promotion for the “Bullet” single. And there was acertain internal strugglle within the band. Not the happiest times! So I’m quite happy to sit here and promote a new Covenant album!”
Yes, I remember that I thought that with “Northern Light” and the accompanying singles Covenant would take totally off and have the sort of success your peers VNV Nation and Apoptygma Berzerk now enjoy with their latest releases. The album was a succes but not exactly the success I suspected.
Montelius: “Yeah! And we as a band thought the same. You know, for “Northern Light” we had such a big promotional support and a bigger budget than everyone else from this scene before! I think only bands with big names like Depeche Mode get this kind of budget and promotional support but not bands from our scene. Everything seemed to be up for the big thing. We had a high budget video for “Bullet”, we had big names remixing our singles, an impressive promotional campaign and all that. And last but not least an album we were quite proud of! But it all collapsed and the “Bullet” single did get nowhere. Many fans even had a hard time to find the various formats of the single. Well, the thing was simply that the management of Sony changed and they had strictly to save their expenses. And they said ‘well, we have this little band from Sweden called Covenant, and Sony has already spent a huge amount of money on them last year, so we’re gonna sack them and close the sublabel K2’. Which was stupid because the money has been already spent anyway. So they just prevented that the fruits of hard work and a lot of money spent could be harvested. It was just damn stupid! But it wasn’t my money after all.”
This must have been a quite frustrating situation for a band!
Montelius: “Yes, at first we felt totally frustrated and let down. Imagine you are at a horse race and you get all the insider’s information that this specific horse will definitely win the race. You have big meetings and all that, and you are sure that this horse will win as really everything hints at it. And the horse is doing great at the race – but shot by the jockey on the brink of the target mark! It was like that, and EMI was the jockey. Sony did not only shot the horse but also those people who worked hard for K2 and our band. Of course we felt totally disillusioned and frustrated. But only at first, though. After a while I was happy that this big commercial breakthrough and the big mainstream success didn’t happen.
Why that?
Montelius: “Well… I just finished reading the Depeche Mode biography, and I think we might have went through something similar as Depeche Mode after the huge success of ‘Violator’ and especially ‘Songs Of faith & Devotion’. Of course not as extreme, and in terms of commercial success Depeche are obviously a different category. But something similar. I’m stunned anyway how similar Covenant and Depeche Mode are when it comes to the internal structure of both bands and the persons involved. You know, I see Clas (Nachmanson) a little bit like Flecth from Depeche Mode. Both do not contribute that much musically – although Clas perhaps contributes a little more than Fletch – but both are essential for their respectve bands. Both Fletch and Clas are holding things together for their bands; and without Clas there would be no Covenant anymore. You see, Eskil and me are not people who care a lot about the financial side of things. If I have money, I spent it. If I don’t I’m still happy. Eskil is probably even worse [laughs]. Clas is the one who is taking care of business things and he is also a trouble-shooter. We always have had a lot of arguments about the creative aspects of Covenant. Clas is the one who helps us to come to terms before we get lost on the way. I’m happy that Clas is with us. And Eskil, he’s a bit like Martin Gore. Eskil is very very creative, all the time, but also quite eccentric and sometimes he doesn’t speak much. Just like Gore, if I can believe what the Depeche bio says. So, the parallels between the two bands are amazing when you take a look how they work internally. I really could identify with Depeche Mode a lot while reading the book. Musically there are huge differences but the personal relationships involved are stunningly similar.
So you’re happy that the mega-success didn’t come with “Northern Light” as you may have went a similar route like Depeche Mode in 1993/94?
Montelius: “Well, as I said not as extreme as them most probably. But we could have ended in a situation where success would have destroyed us. There were some signs of it, and reading the Depeche bio just confirmed that. It was a funny situation after all. Do you know this cartoon where a rocket is ready to take off to the moon? With all the steam and energy released and then nothing happens except that the top of the rocket falls off to the ground? It was a little like that. We had the potential to go to the moon, that didn’t happen. And after all we are quite happy that we are still on the ground, releasing a new album we’re happy with on a new label and so on. Our band had a very problematic time after our last album but now we feel pretty confident and comfortable. With all those experiences we’ve made we are ready for the next adventures.
Hello Joakim, how are you doing?
Montelius: “Oh, I’m doing fine. It’s been a long day and I still have to do a few telephone interviews later on. But I’m enjoying myself with the prospect of having finally a new album out and the respective tour.”
Did you happen to read my review for “Skyshaper” on Reflections of Darkness which wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the album in general?
Montelius: “I actually did read it, and found it quite interesting! And don’t worry! I won’t kill you for being a little critical. [laughs] I prefer honest opinions, anyway. And perhaps you have a good point in the sense that not everything on the album is in its right place. There’s quite a varietey, you know?”
Yeah, but that’s basically great. But when you take a look at various forums on the net you discover that “Skyshaper” gets mixed reactions so far…
Montelius: “But that doesn’t worry me much. That’s always the case when we put out a new album. Maybe because we always try something new and something that’s timeless. It’s been the same with “Northern Light” which is now regarded as one of our best among fans.”
That some people already comment on “Skyshaper” means also that they already got the album from some source. Obviously many people downloaded it illegally.
Montelius: “Well, to be honest I don’t mind it when the promotional version is available on the net. You know, the one which has the voice saying “this is a promotional copy…” in all of the songs. Downloading the full, original album is different. Apart from the fact that it does harm us financially it feels wrong for me as an artist because I want people to experience the full package including cover art work and stuff. We have a brilliant booklet this time, by the way. I’m sure you will be blown away!”
I’m curious. And if people at the shows singalong the line “this is a promotional copy!” at the forthcoming you will know that those bastards just downloaded the promo version instead of buying the real thing.
Montelius: [laughs] “Yeah! That would be funny! But there’s hope that most people will buy the final product as it’s worth it in my opinion. We spent 14 months recording “Skyshaper”, after all!!
14 months is quite some time! Does a Covenant album always take so long to record, and did you have breaks inbetween or did you work on it constantly?”
Montelius: “We were working seven days a week on it and Eskil was literally living in the studio! We had a few shows inbetween but we were working on “Skyshaper” all the time. It’s a lot of trial and error, you know? There are some people who are able to put exactly into sound what they’re hearing in their minds. We don’t, and the creative process takes a lot of discussions anyway. We had 20 to 30 songs to start with and some of them simply didn’t get used. It’s a long process. The song ‘Brave New World’ for example exists in 150 different versions!! It’s hard to decide when a song is finished and sounds perfect. Somehow a song is never finished - you just have to feel when it’s the right time to let it free. To answer your other question, it took us six months to finish ‘Sequencer’ and ‘Europa’, a whole year for ‘United States Of Mind’ and also 14 months to record ‘Northern Light’. You see, it’s a long process and a lot of hard work! I can only hope that people see and appreciate that.”
I got the promotional copy as well to prepare for this interview. The sleeve unfortunately doesn’t tell who wrote for lyrics for which song. We all know that Eskil also contributes lyrically.
Montelius: “Yes, I’m the “chief lyrics writer” as the sleeve says but Eskil wrote the lyrics to “The Men” and “Pulse”, which is incidentally a true story!"
So you wrote the lyrics to “Happy Man”! You know that this is the song on “Skyshaper” which I like least. I just can’t get into it at all, it doesn’t work for me. That is, at least musically as I got the point of the lyrics, and I appreciate them. But musically it doesn’t do much for me, I’m afraid. And I think it destroys a little the flow of the album as the third song on “Skyshaper”.
Montelius: “But that’s what “Happy Man” is supposed to do, breaking the usual flow to push things forward. I think it’s a very very beautiful song and I will bet a big bottle of Jägermeister that “Happy Man” will be one of the most remembered Covenant songs in 10 years time!”
Okay, I accept the bet as I don’t think so! (And now that this has been publiced this bet is official! ;-) )
Although I felt disappointed at first I have to admit that “Skyshaper” is a real grower. Especially the second half of the album contains some brilliant moments like “Spindrift”, “Greather than the Sun” or the album closer “The World Is Growing Loud”. It takes a while to discover the beauty of it.
Montelius: “That’s what I said before, the album will grow. Especially “The World Is Growing Loud” is a very special song. By the way, Eskil recorded the basic rhythm patterns with a little toy drum kit for kids. We had it re-recorded with a professional drummer but that sounded shit and didn’t work at all. So we used the initial sounds of the toy kit and Eskil worked four days on it to pump it up. You see, it’s again trial and error and just about catching the right moment. And “The World Is Growing Loud” has perhaps the saddest lyrics I ever wrote. Its working title was “The Death Song” – not about the death of a specific person but rather the death of Covenant! There was a time last year when I thought our band will be no longer…”
A quite scaring thought! What did you make think that??
Montelius: “Well, many things. As you most probably know our label K2 was closed by EMI in the middle of the promotion for the “Bullet” single. And there was acertain internal strugglle within the band. Not the happiest times! So I’m quite happy to sit here and promote a new Covenant album!”
Yes, I remember that I thought that with “Northern Light” and the accompanying singles Covenant would take totally off and have the sort of success your peers VNV Nation and Apoptygma Berzerk now enjoy with their latest releases. The album was a succes but not exactly the success I suspected.
Montelius: “Yeah! And we as a band thought the same. You know, for “Northern Light” we had such a big promotional support and a bigger budget than everyone else from this scene before! I think only bands with big names like Depeche Mode get this kind of budget and promotional support but not bands from our scene. Everything seemed to be up for the big thing. We had a high budget video for “Bullet”, we had big names remixing our singles, an impressive promotional campaign and all that. And last but not least an album we were quite proud of! But it all collapsed and the “Bullet” single did get nowhere. Many fans even had a hard time to find the various formats of the single. Well, the thing was simply that the management of Sony changed and they had strictly to save their expenses. And they said ‘well, we have this little band from Sweden called Covenant, and Sony has already spent a huge amount of money on them last year, so we’re gonna sack them and close the sublabel K2’. Which was stupid because the money has been already spent anyway. So they just prevented that the fruits of hard work and a lot of money spent could be harvested. It was just damn stupid! But it wasn’t my money after all.”
This must have been a quite frustrating situation for a band!
Montelius: “Yes, at first we felt totally frustrated and let down. Imagine you are at a horse race and you get all the insider’s information that this specific horse will definitely win the race. You have big meetings and all that, and you are sure that this horse will win as really everything hints at it. And the horse is doing great at the race – but shot by the jockey on the brink of the target mark! It was like that, and EMI was the jockey. Sony did not only shot the horse but also those people who worked hard for K2 and our band. Of course we felt totally disillusioned and frustrated. But only at first, though. After a while I was happy that this big commercial breakthrough and the big mainstream success didn’t happen.
Why that?
Montelius: “Well… I just finished reading the Depeche Mode biography, and I think we might have went through something similar as Depeche Mode after the huge success of ‘Violator’ and especially ‘Songs Of faith & Devotion’. Of course not as extreme, and in terms of commercial success Depeche are obviously a different category. But something similar. I’m stunned anyway how similar Covenant and Depeche Mode are when it comes to the internal structure of both bands and the persons involved. You know, I see Clas (Nachmanson) a little bit like Flecth from Depeche Mode. Both do not contribute that much musically – although Clas perhaps contributes a little more than Fletch – but both are essential for their respectve bands. Both Fletch and Clas are holding things together for their bands; and without Clas there would be no Covenant anymore. You see, Eskil and me are not people who care a lot about the financial side of things. If I have money, I spent it. If I don’t I’m still happy. Eskil is probably even worse [laughs]. Clas is the one who is taking care of business things and he is also a trouble-shooter. We always have had a lot of arguments about the creative aspects of Covenant. Clas is the one who helps us to come to terms before we get lost on the way. I’m happy that Clas is with us. And Eskil, he’s a bit like Martin Gore. Eskil is very very creative, all the time, but also quite eccentric and sometimes he doesn’t speak much. Just like Gore, if I can believe what the Depeche bio says. So, the parallels between the two bands are amazing when you take a look how they work internally. I really could identify with Depeche Mode a lot while reading the book. Musically there are huge differences but the personal relationships involved are stunningly similar.
So you’re happy that the mega-success didn’t come with “Northern Light” as you may have went a similar route like Depeche Mode in 1993/94?
Montelius: “Well, as I said not as extreme as them most probably. But we could have ended in a situation where success would have destroyed us. There were some signs of it, and reading the Depeche bio just confirmed that. It was a funny situation after all. Do you know this cartoon where a rocket is ready to take off to the moon? With all the steam and energy released and then nothing happens except that the top of the rocket falls off to the ground? It was a little like that. We had the potential to go to the moon, that didn’t happen. And after all we are quite happy that we are still on the ground, releasing a new album we’re happy with on a new label and so on. Our band had a very problematic time after our last album but now we feel pretty confident and comfortable. With all those experiences we’ve made we are ready for the next adventures.
Part II coming soon!
In Part II Joakim Montelius will reveal what people can expect from Covenant’s forthcoming headliner tour, what happened to the cancelled single “Beat the Noise” and talks about the 20th anniversary of the band, the meaning of the title “Skyshaper” and much more!
In Part II Joakim Montelius will reveal what people can expect from Covenant’s forthcoming headliner tour, what happened to the cancelled single “Beat the Noise” and talks about the 20th anniversary of the band, the meaning of the title “Skyshaper” and much more!
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