Interview with:Peter Tägtgren
There are personalities who can amaze you every day. They’re mystical and will stay like that forever, people who give you the feeling that there’s more behind the music than they can tell you. One of them is the founder of Pain: Peter Tägtgren. He’s well-known with his other band Hypocrisy. Now he’s back with a new CD of his project PAIN; a more industrial mix with metal elements like rough drums and guitars. Together with Tiamat, Serenia and Theatre of Tradegy he’s doing a short tour in Europe. I had the change to speak with him after his show.
How are things on the new tour?
“We’re trying to find each other, because the band is so new. It takes a while to get into it, but I think we getting better and better. We just really do what comes to our minds. We try to get better now, to get the chemistry you need to perform. One of the girls played in MAMBOCURT, but I don’t know if they have live experience. They are good enough to play and I thought it was cool. David, the drummer, has a lot of experience. Actually the tour is going pretty well. Today was a very weird day, because there weren’t too many people, yesterday it was sold out. It’s so different from town to town, you never know what you can expect.
In the end of February there’s a new mile stone. There will be the release of a single: ‘The Same old Song’. So this tour is basically more a wake up call to make sure people remember me. After this we might do another tour to promote the record ‘Dancing with the death’. We are working on it: see if people are interested and come back to play a longer set. TIAMAT is headliner today so we had only 40 minutes, after one hour the people were sleeping, so it’s fine.”
After that it’s a bit silent. We’re sitting in the dressing room of THEATRE OF TRADEGY, who are on stage at the moment. They have some candles on the table and it’s very peaceful. Peter seems to be tired and he’s not really focused on the interview. Sometimes he’s watching television when he doesn’t know what to say, but most of the time he’s searching for words and thinking about what to say. He’s a nice person, but very closed in a way that you can’t see what he feels. He continues his story:
“From the beginning I wanted to use techno, but than I started putting guitars into it and other stuff. Then it became what it became; it’s more like, just try to make some good songs. When there are some industrial, techno elements to get more power, well that’s fine. I don’t use it as a melody, but more to spice it up a little bit more. In comparison with HYPOCRISY that’s the difference. Both bands are just another part of me, different sides of me. For me it feels natural to do both bands. Before I was only singing with PAIN, but I missed my guitar, because it’s much easier to get into it.”
The new John Olivia project also called Pain; it’s a bit weird isn’t it?
“I don’t know why. There are a lot of bands who use a lot of pain. It’s a bit confusing, but well I can’t change it.”
New Record
“The new album will be more guitar-driven than the other one. It’s heavier but has a more catchy sound I think. It’s hard to say, but that’s a good description. I try to use straight drums and some samples of drum moves inside it to make it swing a bit more. I think the production on the new album is the best I have done, so far it concerns the production, because I had more experience.
It’s hard to produce yourself as well; then you have to play all the instruments and stuff, it’s a kind of confusing, but it works. It takes a lot of time, but in the end it’s all worth it. When you start doing it, you really hate it.
There’s so much chaos and that’s frustrating sometimes. Sometimes I need to be in the mood like ‘I want to write this kind of song’ then I go down and do it, to be motivated to do it. I mean I always have melodies and stuff in my head, but when I hear a cool song on the radio like ‘I want to do something similar’ then it’s easier. If someone asks me if I can write a song in a certain way or if I can write for a movie or something, it’s also easier. Because then you get into it easier and you don’t have to be worried about details. I did a movie once and it really was a challenge for me.”
It was a bit silent around you, what have you done in the meanwhile?
“It’s been quiet. To be honest I haven’t done producer work lately. I worked on new stuff for HYPOCRISY in the meanwhile and toured a lot with them. I been busy with them and, you know, when I am not doing the PAIN stuff I do HYPOCRISY and vice versa. Every band has its bit of time. Now it’s PAIN time and after that it’s going to be HYPOCRISY.”
Emotion
When I say to him that I really don’t know what to think about his music, because it’s confusing sometimes he react very enthusiastic: ”That’s the point: I don’t want everybody to see everything so clearly; they just need to think a little bit more. It’s just the way I write it. I don’t want to write in one easy way. I want to go around it a little bit. Not just say things as they are, it’s better to make it a little bit more complex. Sure, people have to understand it, and sometimes it is difficult to understand it, but well basically it’s rock and roll or metal, with all the elements around it to keep it more interesting. The same goes for the lyrics; easy stuff is boring, so sometimes it’s good to have challenges, things in your mind and what you want to do.
I just get inspiration from myself, just try to do things better all the time; to take a step to a higher level. For me it’s just therapy to write music, to get it out of my system. I write the lyrics for me, so it’s very personal, and I don’t try to sing something I don’t believe in. I mean, I don’t have any message to the people like: think this and think that. With HYPOCRISY it’s more straight forward. It’s not really a different approach: like one day I am this and one day I am that, well that would be schizophrenic.
Sometimes it is a little bit like that, sometimes I am a bit different, but I think I have to do this to make it interesting for both bands and not to get too similar. Hopefully the future will be good; we are working on getting booked for some festivals. We just have to wait to see what people think about the album, if we going to do another tour or not. There a lot of new bands at the moment, so we just have to do our own thing as best as we can. So right now we have to work very hard.”
Is it possible to have a normal life, because you are well-known at the moment?
“Well I think so. I mean I live out in the woods, so I am a “hillbilly person”. I have never seen the big city chaos. For me it’s cool. At home I am dad and here I am a musician.”
After that we have to quit because the show of Theatre of Tragedy is ended. It was a nice conversation.
We'd like to thank Peter for his time.
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