Witherscape
Escape From White Darkness

24.08.2013

There was a period in the early and mid-1990s when Swedish multi-insumentalist and singer Dan Swano seemed to be living in the studio, putting out records all the time with his bands such as Unicorn, Pan-Thy-Monium, Nightingale and, of course, Edge Of Sanity. However, by the end of the 2000s Dan had basically limited himself to mixing and mastering music for other bands, basically giving up his own music. Which was a great pity for us, first of all, because his own music used to be fantastic most of the time, and second, because we saw him live with Nightingale in Moscow in 2006, and it was a great performance, though very challenging (I mean VERY) for everyone involved in putting it together. Anyway, we were extremely delighted when we heard in spring 2013 that Dan signed a new deal with Century Media Records and was coming up with yet another new project, Witherscape, that he put together with another multi-instrumentalist, Ragnar Widerberg. Shortly before their first album, “The Interhitance”, saw the light of day, Dan gave us a call from Germany, where he resides now, to discuss the events which led to the creation of the new record, his singing capabilities, his plans for cooperation with Century Media, and a lot of other interesting things, mostly current and future – we’ll speak about his glorious past some other time…

What are your memories about playing in Moscow back in 2006? How did you like the audience and the city?

The audience was super, and the gig itself was extremely good. I was terribly ill, my voice was completely gone, and I spent the whole day before the gig in the bathroom with hot water on to wake up my fucking throat. Thanks to adrenaline, some ice cream and this and that I actually performed a really good show in the end, but I couldn’t really talk, my voice was absolutely gone. It was due to a virus, not from partying or singing or whatever, and it’s the worst kind – when you really have a condition. I was a bit set back because of this whole thing. I remember – because we were our own roadies – I had to walk on the stage at one point to put my pedal down, and there was this roaring noise from the crowd that actually scared me! I never had that reception before. When I walked on the stage, it was like, “What’s going on? Is there a fire or what? Oh, it’s because I am on stage! Fuck, this will be a good show!” (everybody laughs)

I remember I was so shocked when before the show you asked for an ice cream. I though, “Is this guy really going to sing tonight?” (everybody laughs)

Well, it’s what they say – you should try to keep it cold. I’m not sure that anything helps really, but anyone who has ever done something extremely important when they were injured know that your body has a special reserve of adrenaline, and when you go on the stage – oops, you can sing! It’s the same as when you see somebody under a car, you get extra strength, and you can lift that fucking thing, but only because the situation is so special. I had a lot of that in my days as a performer. Once I had a really bad knee, in Norway I had an extreme problem with my hand when I played drums about 25 years ago, but I did the gig, and the second it was like, “Oh thank you, good night!”, then the pain comes back. It’s really scary, but I like that function of the body! (laughs)

I remember doing an interview with you back in 2004 for Bloodbath. I asked you about your impressions from working with Black Mark Records, and you replied, “I only want to release a record every two years, maybe I don’t deserve a bigger label”. But now you are on Century Media, which is indeed a bigger label. Does it mean that now you have bigger ambitions for your projects?

I think after a while you get tired of putting your heart and soul into something – in this case, a record – and you find that nobody can buy it. It’s like it was not even released. I remember a time when a friend of mine was like, “Oh, I was in England, and I went to His Master’s Voice, and they have Edge Of Sanity records there!” It was like, “Wow, cool! You go to London, and there are my records there!” But the records were nowhere. I understand how it works: when the band – or we used to be more of a project – delivers an album to the label and say, “Bye-bye, that was it”, why should they promote it? You’re not behind it, you’re not gonna go touring, you’re not gonna be making endless hours of promotion traveling around like big bands do… They just sell it to the distributor, and when they get rid of some copies of it, they say, “Fuck off, let’s do the next thing”. In this way, Century Media is good for the album with which I aimed at a larger audience. I’m not preaching to the converted. It’s great that Century Media was willing to work on my level – I’m not touring, I’m not doing that in a traditional way, and through the contract they offered, I get all the good stuff from being on a big level, but also all the good stuff from being on a small level in one. Obviously the decision to sign with them was a no-brainer. I know they have signed Arjen Lucassen, I think they have something with Devin Townsend, and maybe they learned that it’s good to have both – touring bands that do stuff all the time like Arch Enemy, and some weirdos like Arjen and myself who just sit in our studio and come up with really good records. That’s also a balance for the label.

As far as I understand, your deal with Century Media is not limited to Witherscape only. Does it mean that you will be bringing your other projects, such as Nightingale, to Century Media, too?

Yep, that’s the plan! We have the deal where I’m to present to them pretty much everything I do that could fit any of Century Media labels. They have a lot of them, they have a progressive label called InsideOut, they have Superball that releases more rock oriented stuff… I will present to them the new Nightingale record, and hopefully they’ll enjoy it and we’ll release it through Century Media. Then I’m planning to make some kind of death metal solo album, also in the pretty near future. I will start recording it in parallel, because I’m pretty easily bored. (laughs) I’d rather start now in order not to have to do everything in two weeks, I’d rather take a couple of years doing it and make it more fun. Hopefully they will release that one as well, and then another Witherscape album in a couple of years. I will definitely try to have everything out on Century Media, and this also goes for re-releases of old stuff, such as Pan-Thy-Monium’s “Dream II”EP (1991) and “Dawn of Dreams” album (1992). They have already bought some back catalogue stuff from me that was floating around. Hopefully it will be a home for all things from me for the future.

Speaking about Witherscape – it’s not a very easy name to memorize, is it? Why wouldn’t you release “The Inheritance” under the name “Dan Swano”, don’t you think it would catch more attention that way?

I don’t really care. Everyone said, “Oh, you should release it as Edge Of Sanity”, it would catch even more attention. But it’s not about that. Witherscape is a name… we had to pick a name at one point. I think it’s a name that is OK, it’s not the best name, but it’s kind of cool, and the most important thing is when you Google it, there’s nothing else out there, apart from one role playing game that someone told me about. I had so many other band names that I wanted, and every one of them was already taken. I had a list of 10-15 names, and I thought at one point, “Let’s find names that include ‘wither’ and ‘scape’”, and at the end of the day I said, “Let’s just fucking call us Witherscape and get on with it”. For me if I make a Dan Swano record, everybody will say, “Where’s the keyboards from ‘Moontower’? Why don’t you do it like ‘Moontower’? We want ‘Moontower’!” But I don’t want that! “Moontower” is an excellent record, but it’s an old thing. When I do a future solo album under my own name, I think it should be only me. There should not be another person. The contribution from Rangar is way too big for him to be a part of solo album by someone. I don’t work that way. When there’s a co-pilot involved, we pick a name. And it’s good not have any baggage.

You and your partner Ragnar both compose music for Witherscape. Does each of you come up with more or less finished songs, or do you get together in one room and jam?

Actually with this one we did the jamming thing. I think every song except one consists 50/50 of my and Ragnar’s ideas.

When the concept of the album was revealed, people on the Internet immediately started comparing it with “Abigail” by King Diamond. Is there any truth to such comparisons?

Absolutely! We had this idea that we should have a house on the cover. Me and Ragnar wanted a cover that would look like a yellow back-and-white old photograph, and that was the idea we had for a very long time. But one thing I learned from my time with record labels is that some labels actually know what they’re doing, and they have proof that what they’re doing is right for the project. At a pretty early stage when we started sending sketches back and forth, the label was also involved, because the cover is a part of their product, and they said immediately, “No black-and-white cover, it looks cheap, and it’s not gonna attract people. Make it a little bit more colorful!” I thought, “Hmm, OK, let’s give it a shot.” Ten years ago I’d say, “Fuck off, it’s my record, burn in hell.” But because Century Media know their shit, I actually respect their opinion, and I thought, “Well, they are paying for the fucking cover, let’s see what Travis Smith can do with color!” Then we all agreed that we bring what we call “Somberlain blue” and try to make it that way, and all of a sudden we all went, “Ah, it looks like a classic Swedish death metal album cover from 1992!” Then we started getting details done, and someone mentioned “Abigail” by King Diamond in our conversation. I was like, “Really? King Diamond? I don’t know”. Honestly I’m a big fan of Mercyful Fate and not really a big fan of King Diamond, I don’t know why, but I never owned any of his records, and I couldn’t make this direct comparison in my mind as to what that cover looked like. I went online and saw it, of course, and I got this really bad feeling in my stomach, like, “Oh, this will follow us forever”. People will say, “Why do you make a cover that looks like a King Diamond cover?” But it’s strictly coincidental, and it was way too late to change anything. I actually told them, “We must move the house from the left to the right”, because on the King Diamond cover the house is closer to the left. We tried to do what we could without compromising anything. But in the end, I think, it looks like a classic record cover. Of course, it’s got vibes from King Diamond and “The Somberlain” (a classic Dissection album from 1994 – ed.) and some other records, but we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We just wanted a good looking cover in the death metal style of artwork.

You have recorded quite a few concept albums throughout your career. However, nowadays very many people tend to listen to selected tracks, not full albums, or even check out 20 seconds of a song and then jump to the next one if they don’t like it. In your opinion, what kind of audience will appreciate “The Inheritance”? Do you primarily aim at experienced listeners like yourself, or do you think younger people will also appreciate it?

I’m not so sure about the young people, honestly. We have a really good response from people around our own ages - Rangar is about 35, and I’m 40 – and that’s most likely our audience. This new generation that grew up with metalcore and all that stuff – I don’t think they will fully appreciate it. I’m sure that there are some younger kids like my son, for example, grew up in a household with Marillion and Rush and also embraced the true guitar heroes of the old school classic rock stuff, but the kids who grew up on metalcore and deathcore – I don’t think they have much to get from Witherscape, honestly. And I didn’t want to make any compromises, so this is definitely an album for the people that like to listen to an album in headphones from the beginning to the end, look at the pictures in the booklet, close their eyes and dream away. That’s my audience. I haven’t done that myself with a record for a long time, and I wanted to make one for myself with Witherscape. Now I can do it!

I have just listened to a podcast where you speak in great detail about the recording of the growling vocals for Witherscape. As far as I understand, originally you considered bringing several other singers to do the vocals, but eventually you decided to growl yourself, regardless of all the problems this causes to your voice. What was the reason?

Well, for this kind of comeback record… I’m pretty picky with my growling, I like three or four growling vocalists ever, and there are some that are OK. I know this sounds a little bit egocentric and crazy, but I really like my own growling – but only when it’s really at full power, and my voice is not fucked up from growling for two hours. I like this virgin growl that I have, I think it sounds really cool. I haven’t really done a record with that, on all the other records that I’ve been growing on I had to do all the growling in one or two days, and most of the songs are recorded with me using 50% of my power or even less. Now I had a chance to give you 100% in every fucking line, because I recorded it over a few months. I could go home, I could heal my voice again, and when I felt that my voice was back to normal, I would sing half a song or whatever, completely fuck up my voice and my body to go with it, and then say, “Fuck, I will never growl again!” But eventually I’d say, “Oh fuck, maybe I’m in a growling state”, and I did it. That’s the reason why I did it – I wanted the Witherscape album to be the best possible record. For me to have a few guests is OK, and to share the vocals with a vocalist like I did on “Crimson II” (the last Edge Of Sanity album released in 2003 – ed.) is OK, but not my favorite. It was still nice of Rogga (Johansson) to do it, but for me it was an emergency solution. I knew that my voice was not gonna make it, and he was the guy with the voice closest to mine, and I could direct him a little bit. At that time, I didn’t have the time and the vibe to do the whole growling myself. In the future, I will try to growl a little bit every day – or every second day, or whatever – for my future albums, that’s why I need to start recording them pretty early. That goes also for my clean singing – for the new Nightingale album I will try to sing until I feel that my voice is a little bit fucked up, and then I will quit. It’s better than to go on and feel that the quality is going down.

In the same podcast you said that in between two Star One records you gained confidence as a singer. How did you manage to do it? What gave you this confidence? In general, how do you develop and take care of your voice? Do you do any exercises?

No, and that’s the problem. I wish I had some kind of idea how to make my voice better. Actually I have less staying power in my voice now, even after talking, after doing all the interviews today my voice is pretty fucked. I wish I could come up with something. But I have learned a few tricks from an old friend of mine, a vocal coach, and I try to do it in the car on my way to the studio when I know I will sing later in the day, but I also forget it. (laughs) Confidence is entirely the thing of the mind. When I was invited to sing on the first Star One record (“Space Metal”, 2002) after hearing some of the vocals I had done for Nightingale, I felt like, “Why does he want me on the record?” It turned out that he was looking for a really deep gothic style of vocals. Still I had a few parts where you really need someone with his confidence like Ronnie James Dio or Geoff Tate, someone who really owns the fucking speaker when you listen to that. And I felt like I’m still a drummer, maybe good at mixing, can play the keyboards, but I was only a singer because I couldn’t find the singer that I could work with, so I’d rather work with myself. After that record came out, what happened with the Nightingale stuff was that I kind of went for the approach that I will sing from the soul rather than think too much what it sounds like. I just wanted to get the best possible performance on every album. I don’t know, I just found my voice. I think getting a little bit older helps also. When I grew up in Finnsborg, a small town of 20,000 people, there were always musicians trying to bring you down, like, “You should not think that you are somebody, you should just shut up and be this local fucking musician”. If I were and stage and acted like a rock star, shouting something like, “Yeah, come on!!!”, they would say, “What the fuck was that? Don’t think you are anyone. You’re just a piece of shit.” I never had the guts to sing like I thought I was a rock star, I was always holding back so that nobody could give me a hard time. But when I actually sing like I am a rock star, when I get this attitude and I get this more of a theatrical performance and really give full power, people come up to me and say, “Wow, you really learned to sing! What the fuck is going on?” I imagine myself being a rock star, and it works! (laughs) You sing from your heart and you believe in yourself for this thing, and when you listen back, you wanna hear all the emotions of the lyrics, be it deep or theatrical. From that moment on, I became a new singer. Yeah, that’s the only thing I can tell you.

As far as I understand, you have recently started recording a new album with Nightingale. It’s been six years since the previous record (“White Darkness”, 2007) – how does it feel to revive this project? What will the new Nightingale record sound like?

I think Nightingale has been around a little bit all the time. The project was never supposed to be a full-time thing, but from time to time we had a gig or when we just gathered and rehearsed. There was always something to do. I think it’s great to do another Nightingale record and know that there’s a possibility it will be released by a big label and that we can finally reach out again to the people who liked the early stuff. I mean, the last three or four records just disappeared without a trace. Musically this new record is a combination of… I don’t know, it’s definitely Nightingale style, more from around “Alive Again” (2003) and “Invisible” (2005), I don’t think it has any connection to “White Darkness”. I wanted to make a record that would make me feel as good as when I listen to “Nightfall Overture” (2006), this compilation where we re-recorded all the songs. And I wanted to make sure that I like all the songs really much and I feel a special vibe about it, and since my brother (Dag Swano) is going through some sort of writer’s block for Nightingale-style material, I wrote nine out of ten songs alone. That will, of course, bring back more of “my” Nightingale flavor to the sound. There’s a bit of everything there – from the stuff that is a little bit darker and metal-oriented to some pretty light stuff like “The Glory Days” (off “Alive Again” – ed.). For me it’s actually a bit of a classic Nightingale album, but with a little twist. I’m older and wiser, but I will definitely try to give it the vibe of “Nightfall Overture”, I like that album a lot.

Do you have any touring plans for Nightingale? And are there any chances of seeing Witherscape on stage?

There are absolutely no plans for Witherscape at the moment, because we need some kind of offer from a festival or whatever who will pay us a decent amount of money to get something together, because we would need to rent three or four musicians, and the good ones who could learn fast are not cheap at all. That’s probably not so likely to happen, but I always say “never say never,” only time will tell. Nightingale will not be touring, but I hope that we will put together some festival plan for next year when we release the album, to do a few selected shows would be awesome.

The official Unisound Studios website says that this year you are remastering something by Edge Of Sanity. Does it mean that your old records are going to be re-released, or is there some demo stuff which you’re bringing out?

That’s actually a work in progress. It started with me remixing “Kur-Nu-Gi-A” (an Edge Of Sanity demo tape from 1990 – ed.), I don’t know if you have that one available in Russia…

It’s bootlegged in Russia, to tell you the truth. There’s a bootleg on sale, but I’ve never seen the official release here…

OK. The reason is that I wanted to have a 12-inch picture disc of “Kur-Nu-Gi-A” on my wall before I die! (laughs) I have it now, so I can die in peace.

Please don’t! (everybody laughs)

When I started searching for whatever material on cassettes – “Kur-Nu-Gi-A” was recorded on a normal cassette studio with only four channels – I found a lot of other stuff that we had lying around, some unreleased live material, etc., and I presented to Black Mark the idea that I could remaster some of the stuff, the first album (“Nothing But Death Remains”, 1991), for instance, add some unique material, and release it as some kind of record. When I moved to Germany 1.5 years ago, my time became a bit more limited, I didn’t have that much spare time like I had a couple of years ago, so I think it’s been put on ice. Whenever they want me to remaster some of those cool things we did and release it on some kind of CD, I will do it, but there’s no remastering going on at the moment. But I’m happy to tell you that there will be a re-release of “Nightfall Overture” on both CD and vinyl, that’s really cool.

You started writing songs at a very early age, the song “Alone” from Nightingale’s first record was composed when you were six years old. What were your sources of inspiration back then? What made you start composing that early?

My brother Dag was composing already, I guess – or listening to music, or playing. It was something that stuck from this stage. When he was around 15-16, he rehearsed with his band in our living room, and I would stand outside the door and listen. He was my hero, he still is in a certain way. Thanks to him I got an extremely good upbringing in life musically, he gave me so much of his time. I didn’t understand it at that moment, but a lot of his spare time was spent with my band Ghost. He helped us to record demos, he played live with us at our school, and of course, at this very early age, when my brother was writing songs, I wanted to write songs, too, because he was my idol. So I sat at my little organ, tried myself on the piano, and eventually he kind of picked up on this that I was not so bad as a composer for being so young, and we actually formed a band together called The Fordz, it could have been around 1977 or 1978. We recorded 15 or 20 songs where I sing in some kind of fake English, and I wrote five or ten more songs that I don’t remember. Then I just went on writing, and the inspiration came from all the music that my two brothers played to me – Kiss, MSG, Judas Priest, and all this early stuff that they found interesting. I used to steal a lot – my brother played me some songs by Kansas that I liked pretty much, and without knowing it really, I was singing the same song, but I called it “Lullaby”. Later on I found out it was stolen, but it was more of subconscious inspiration.

Now you have a child, too. Does he already write or sing or play anything?

Yeah, he’s got a band called Concubine, but I think they’ve split up, and he’s got a new band now. I think they released an EP, even in the physical format - on CD, it’s a kind of post-hardcore/screamo kind of stuff. It’s kind of cool actually. I don’t know about his new project, I haven’t heard it yet, but he’s a guitar player, and a singer, and a songwriter, and a concert booking guy, so he’s definitely in the game. He’s 20 this year.

Did you try to influence him, kind of push him to start playing and writing, or did you just let it go and see what happened?

I tried a little bit. I gave him a second-hand electric guitar, and put it in his room, and by the time he understood that it was not so easy, it was not something you could learn in two minutes, he got bored, and the guitar was just gathering dust in a corner. It wasn’t until the normal age, when you normally start playing, like 15 or 16, when he really got into this whole guitar playing thing. But I wasn’t around him at that time, because he lived with his mother and he did his thing. I think to influence your kids does not mean to tell them, “You must play the guitar or drums, because I did it”, because they turn into different individuals, and you have to let them go with whatever they want. At the moment you stop pushing they will stop it anyway.

Some people believe that if you’re a fan it’s better not to get to know your idols too close, because they may turn out not what you expect them to be. As a producer and mixing engineer, you got to know quite a few people whom you admired early in your career, for instance, Morgoth. Is there any truth to such statements? Have you ever been disappointed by any of your idols?

Oh, not really, not by those that I have worked with in this way. Everyone has been extremely cool. Sometimes I think, “Wow, I got to work with Morgoth!”, but in the end I was communicating more with some guys at the label. It was the same with Terrorizer, I worked more with the new members of Terrorizer, not with Pete Sandoval (drums) or Dave Vincent (bass). I did get to work with Merciless a long time ago, and they were just super-cool guys. They were heroes for me, too, in my teenage days. I haven’t been disappointed by anyone that I was looking forward to work with, I’m currently in communication with Ed Warby from Gorefest, who is in Hail Of Bullets whom I’m mixing at the moment. He’s also one of those guys who I saw in my teenage years and thought, “Wow, that’s a really cool drummer”, and now I’ve even done records together with him in the line-up. He’s just the greatest guy. So far so good.

I’ve spoken to a few producers and mixing engineers, and many of them say that after an eight-hour working day in the studio, they never listen to other people’s music just for pleasure. Is it also the case with you? Do you check out young bands, or do you just want silence when you come home?

I listen a lot to my iPod. I put all my CDs on it when I bought it a couple of years ago, so it’s got about 6,000 songs on it. I recently went through every fucking song and decided if I like it or not by pushing a button to create my own special playlist, and I ended up with like 1,260 songs out of 6,000 from my own record collection that I would like to hear again. (laughs) At the moment this is what I listen to going to work and going home from work. I listen to my favorite songs in a shuffled way, I don’t know if it’s Toto, or Marillion, or Death, or Hobbs’ Angel Of Death, or Dark Angel, or Richard Marx. That’s the way that I like to consume music. I haven’t really listened that actively to anything new. I got a few records from Century Media, they sent me the new Arch Enemy, Spiritual Beggars, etc. and I listened to all of them. There are a few good moments here and there, but honestly I’m like your other interview objects – pretty tired of music when I come home. I’d rather just listen to the voice of my girlfriend or our dog barking. (laughs)

There is a huge list of bands you’ve worked with on the Unisound website. However, I found no Russian bands on this list. Does it mean they never ask, or does it mean you never agree?

I’ve actually mastered a couple of Russian bands…

Do you remember the names?

Not really. Sometimes the work is extremely obscure – you get in touch with the guy, you know his name, he sends you a file called “LM2S3”, you master this, send it back to the guy, and you never know what the band name or the song title was. Just a few months ago I did the mastering for some video of a Russian band. I do a lot of one-song masterings, too. There’s a couple of bands that actually sang in Russian, and it was an extremely weird hardcore/metal thing, there was surprise noise there and weird instruments… (laughs) I really don’t remember the name, it’s somewhere on my backup drive.

Witherscape on the Internet: http://www.witherscape.com

Special thanks to Niklas Tschaikowsky (Century Media Records) for arranging this interview

Roman Patrashov
July 7, 2013
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