Pain
Dance Metal Paradise

22.12.2008

Nearly five years have passed since our previous conversation with Peter Tagtgren, leader of Swedish bands Hypocrisy and Pain, but not much has changed about the man. At least on the conversation level – he’s still very brief in his answers, and sometimes you get an impression that he doesn’t care about many things related to his bands. This impression, however, is definitely wrong, he keeps a close eye on everything, it’s just that he’s more interested in composing music than talking about it. On this particular occasion – shortly before Pain’s triumphant gig in Moscow in December 2008 – our conversation ran into extra difficulties with security guys breaking in and telling the three of us to get out because we were not technical personnel, so we had no permission to be backstage. Nevertheless, we did manage to complete the interview and even to enjoy it – Peter is a nice guy, after all.

Before this show you wrote on your website that the Russian audience is special for you. In what way is it special? How much is it different from the audience you have in Europe or in America?

I think they’re crazier, a bit louder, and they’re always there whenever we do a concert. Usually there’s a lot of people in the audience.

You were supposed to come here with Nightwish a couple of months ago, but our question is about your previous European tour with Nightwish. We read so much about it – how you were attacked by robbers, how the police stopped your bus and so on – and we were wondering how they would make it. So, how did you make it?

The Nightwish fans were really nice to us, and it was easy. When you go onstage, you forget all the problems.

How did you come up with the idea to have Nightwish singer Anette Olzon singing on a few tracks off your new album “Cynic Paradise”? You’d never worked with female singers before…

It was through the tour – we came up with the idea to do something together.

Do you have any plans to include female vocal parts in your future albums?

I don’t know. (laughs) Let’s see, maybe yes or maybe not.

There are other surprises on “Cynic Paradise”, for instance, the song “Have A Drink On Me”, which is quite new to the Pain sound. Were you listening to bands like ZZ Top or Lynyrd Skynyrd a lot before composing it?

Oh, yeah! I listened a lot to them, I grew up with it.

But why did you decide to add these elements right now?

Ehh, just to do a little rollercoaster in the music, not just to have the same feeling all over the album. There have to be some breaks.

So, when you start writing for an album, you don’t know how the finished CD will sound like, right?

I never know.

It’s an interesting combination – on the one hand, many people call you a control freak, meaning that you want to have control over everything that you do with the band, but on the other hand, when you start writing, you just let it flow…

Yeah, I let the music do the talking. Whatever goes out of that, makes the album.

In general, “Cynic Paradise” sounds as if you decided to reactivate the sound of “Rebirth” (2000) once again. Was it an intentional decision not to continue in the vein of “Psalms Of Extinction” (2007)?

Yeah, I wanted to get back to this industrial feeling a little bit. It was natural to write that kind of stuff, to take it back a little bit to where I started.

You said you don’t like the cover artwork for “Psalms Of Extinction” at all. Do you like the cover for the new CD? And what is its meaning, by the way?

Yeah, it’s much better, and a little bit darker. As to the meaning, I have no idea, it’s just a nice picture. That’s how I see all the covers.

For “Cynic Paradise” you went back to Nuclear Blast Records, which released the first Pain album in 1997. What went wrong with your previous label Roadrunner?

We had different views for the future, and I saw that it’s not gonna be good. So we decided just to break up before it was too much.

Has this change influenced album sales in any way?

I don’t know how it’s selling here in Russia, bit in Europe it’s OK.

We’ve just seen your video for “Follow Me”, and it’s very different from “Shut Your Mouth” or “Zombie Slam”, for instance. How do you decide if a video needs a concept and some story going on, or if it’s enough to just show the band playing?

I follow the director’s suggestions most of the time. I don’t really get involved in it, I do the music, and they can do the picture.

Are you always satisfied with the outcome of the videos?

Yeah, most of the times.

There was a report that you recorded a recent show in Paris for possible release on a bonus DVD for the new album, but it never happened. Are you going to do anything with this recording?

It’s gonna come out in February or March on a special edition.

Will there be a new edition of “Cynic Paradise” so soon?

Yeah, it will carry a bonus DVD with 15 to 20 clips from different places.

Don’t you think that this latest tendency to re-release albums with some enhancements just a year after the original release hurts fans quite a lot?

I think so, it’s a kind of cheat. That’s why we tried to put as much stuff as possible on the DVD. It’s like you buy the DVD and get the CD as a bonus.

When we were talking five years ago you said that you needed to be miserable to become creative. Has anything changed since then in this aspect?

Now it’s the opposite, I need to feel good to be creative. It goes up and down, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

One of the most controversial songs in your back catalogue is “Bitch”. Actually we saw people at your previous Moscow show getting offended when you dedicated this song to all the women in the hall. But seriously, is there any deeper meaning behind these lyrics?

It’s just irony. Everybody loves sex, and that’s what this song is about. Some people like sex in a certain way, other people like sex in another way, so that’s with irony, definitely.

Before creating Pain you played metal for many years. How did you get interested in electronic music? What were the bands that made you expand your tastes so much?

I was brought up on keyboards and stuff like that. When I was a kid, my dad was building keyboards, and he played a lot of keyboard-driven albums. It’s always been there, but I never knew how to do things. And also when I was listening to different albums that were not metal, I wanted to learn how to produce such music. So it was more for the producing aspect that I started Pain.

You know, there’s a popular story that you recorded the first Pain album just a month after you learned to use samplers and synthesizers. It turns out to be a rumor, right?

I did start to create Pain’s music after I bought some keyboards and stuff, but it took me 10 years to learn how to really work with samplers, computers and everything. It’s good for me now, because now I’m a wider producer, I can produce much more things than just metal.

What do you now think about the first Pain album?

(laughs) I don’t know… There are some good songs on it, but if I had more time and more knowledge, I would have been able to do it much better.

Any idea to re-record some of these songs? Especially given your recent “upgrade” of the Hypocrisy album “Catch 22”…

No, not now with Pain. Maybe when we play live, there will be some new versions.

By the way, what is now going on with Hypocrisy? Is there a new album in the plans?

It’s not actually in the plans. We’re still writing music, and maybe next year it will come out. Right now I don’t know too much, we’re just writing material, and when we have enough material, we will record it.

And the final question – what’s your attitude by another band called Pain – Jon Oliva’s Pain from the United States?

I don’t know, I’ve never heard it. I mean, I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never listened to it. And the name is not exactly the same, it’s Jon Oliva’s Pain. People may think whatever they want, but I don’t really care.

Pain on the Internet: http://www.pain.cd

Special thanks to Vera Dmitrieva (Spika Concert Agency) for arranging this interview.

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov, Dmitry “Ward” Kulikov
December 5, 2008
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