"Bloodbound are celebrating 20th anniversary with the live album "The Tales of Nosferatu.Two Decades of Blood (2004-2024)!" This newsletter in my email hit me quite hard. Like what? I still vividly remember how I bought Bloodbound's debut album "Nosferaty" on CD and banged my head listening to the title track in a CD walkman while going home on a subway train. 20 years already? Other people's children apparently grow so quickly! A bit of a spoiler here: "Tales of Nosferatu" really rocks! Great footage, amazing performance, killer quality, lots of bonuses including a comic book... I've got in touch with the keyboard player Fredrik Bergh to discuss everything related to the upcoming live album and some moments from the band's history.
Hello Fredrik! Nice to chat with you! Bloodbound played a small tour in Spain in March. So how did it go?
It was great to play in Spain. We did shows in Barcelona, Madrid and Donostia. The crowds were very dedicated and the reception was very warm. We played club shows as headliners and therefore we were able to play 90 minutes and perform our full set. And of course or mascot Nosferatu appeared on stage — he does this on every show.
Let’s discuss the live album and the show at the Masters of Rock festival. How did you get this idea of recording a live show in 2023 beforehand? Did you have in mind the upcoming 20th anniversary of the band?
I talked to our label (AFM Records) and asked what they thought about recording this show for the upcoming anniversary and adding some bonus videos from the tour we did in Japan in 2019 and all the promo videos. The label really liked the idea and so we arranged everything to film the performance. We had with us Jonas Kjellgren who normally mixes our studio albums, and he mixed this live album for the first time. We really put a lot of work in getting this product out.
Firs of all, it’s an amazing festival and we are good friends with the organizer of the event. And I guess one of the greatest fan bases for Bloodbound is in Czech Republic. And then, we haven’t played there since 2008. So we have really good conections with the promoter and the video team there. We released one DVD from the Bang Your Head festival in the past, but we couldn’t miss the opportunity to film our show at Masters of Rock.
Did you consider other ideas for the anniversary like re-recording old songs or re-releasing your back catalogue?
We just re-released “Stormborm” because CDs were sold out and the label had to re-print them. As for the anniversary, we have no other plans, just the live album
Did you think about asking some ex-members to join you or celebrate 20th anniversary with some really special club show?
We have no such plans but we plan to start writing a new album. And for the next year we have some exciting news as well.
A-ha! I’m really looking forward to that! Let’s get back to the live album for a while! Did you rehearse some special set for this event or was it your regular set that you played every show last year?
During the festival we had like 70 minutes or something, so it was hard to play something extra. We played some new songs and some songs that seem to be the most popular among the fans. That's all we could do. Next year we plan to play some different sets with the older songs and newer songs, so there will be more deep cuts in our sets. We are gonna include lot of songs from our first album and do some surprise shows.
As far as I know, Patrik was a bit sick during the show at Masters of Rock. What happened and how did he managed to sing all those high notes?
Yes, he was sick, and he got help from, I think, three different doctors who gave him some miracle medication before the show. Otherwise we would have canceled the show. Patrik ahd some severe infection and I guess he was given nine or ten different medicines to open up his throat.
Wow! That was a real self-sacrifice to walk on stage and sing in such conditions!
Absolutely! His voice still suffers from that show, because Patrik sang when he was very ill.
 |
| Picture by Svein Frydnes |
He is. He gives all he can. One time he broke his arm and still did the show. We were in Germany, and Patrik fell off the stage before the show. He had very bad pain in his arm but did the show on painkillers. I think he did three shows before we went back to Sweden, and then he went on to x-ray and discovered that he broke his arm.
That’s amazing how much musicians are ready to do in such situations, and some fans still complain about poor performance without knowing what happened behind the curtain.
That’s true. The show must go on. If you traveled that far to play a show you can’t just go home, it must be something very serious.
“The Tales of Nosferatu” sounds incredible, so I even doubted at first that it’s a live recording! How much live is it actually? Did you use some backing tracks during the show? Did you re-record anything in a studio?
We always have backing tracks when we play live. I think 99% of bands do this if they are not super-duper true metal. If you record in a studio with lots of orchestra and lots of keyboard sounds, hundred voices it’s very hard to reproduce it live without backing tracks. If you take a look on Nightwish for example, they have full orchestra on tape. So we have backing tracks but we play live what we can. We фдso re-recorded some small thingы in the studio but most of the album is live.
Why did you decide to add to the album some songs from a Japanese show which you played back in 2019?
First of all, it was special for us to play in Japan. It's been the first and the only time so far. It was a nice experience and they had a film crew from Korea who was filming everything. So we decided to use the opportunity to release this material as a special bonus. Japan is a very special country and for us it was like coming to another planet. After each song the crowd was totally silent because people wanted to hear whar we were gonna say between the songs. That was a bit scary, because the venue was completely silent in these moments. But we were prepared for that. We knew that this is how Japanese fans pay respect to musicians — when musicians talk fans are silent. But even we knew about that and didn’t freak out, it still was interesting.
During the song “Nosferatu” your mascot walks on stage but just for a few seconds and then Patrik sends him away. Don’t you want to extend this part of the show and crucify Nosferatu for example?
Of course! With a bigger budget and additional crew that would have worked. To extend our show we must bring one additional crew member every time who knows what to do exactly. When we use the Nosferatu mascot now, we just ask someone who is at the show and give him some instructions to walk on stage and do something.
It was actually the idea of our record label. They wanted us to do a comic for the album, and Péter Sallai did such a great job — the comic looks beautiful! And the story was written by Roman, who used to work at AFM Records. He did us some suggestions, we changed them a bit until it all clicked. The idea was to have all the song titles from the live album in the story.
Do you personally like suh things like comics and fantasy/fiction literature?
I used to like comics when I was a kid, “The Phantom” and “The Spiderman”, but I can’t say I read comics these days.
Now let’s overview some moments from these past 20 years. What were the key or turning point in the history of the band?
In the beginning it was a bit unstable with different singers coming and going, so one of the key moments was when we found Patrik Seleby 14 years ago. That was really important for the band to keep it together and to have a permanent singer who we enjoy working with. Another important moment was the “Stormborn” album. I think that was when we found our musical style.
What decisions were the hardest or even painful for you and the band?
I’d rather stand with the positive ones! (Laughs) As for bad moments, that was definitely the beginning, when we couldn’t find working situation in the band with different members coming and going.
I’ve always wondered what happened to your relationships with Michael Bormann. One moment he was in and recorded “Book of the Dead” and then he was out…
At the time we had ended our working relationships with Urban Breed and couldn’t find a singer here in Sweden. I knew Michael a little bit from before, so we asked him to help us. You can say he was just a session singer for that album. It wasn’t the best decision because he weren’t up for touring or anything. So when we made “Book of the Dead”, we had to find another singer anyway.
The album “Tabula Rasa” stands apart from your other records. How do you see this album there days? Was it a move in a slightly different direction?
After the first two albums Tomas Olsson, our guitar player, said, “Let’s try to do more modern metal album!”. So when someone asks me about “Tabula Rasa”, I say it was Tomas’ solo album, because he did everything on it and he had very clear vision of what he wanted to do. I said, “OK, if you wanna do it, try it”. But it was not what Bloodbound are about, I think. So yeah, that was really different album.
I may be wrong, but in one interview Patrik, even he didn’t sing on that album, said, that the band should release “Tabula Rasa” under different name.
That’s true. It was such a different record, that people wondered what the hell was going on. But with “Unholy Cross” we returned to the style of “Nosferatu” and “Book of the Dead”.
How was it for you to step aside and let Tomas did everything on “Tabula Rasa”? Didn’t you feel like you were pushed to the back burner?
I think at the time I had other things going on. I didn’t have a hard time with Tomas doing it and I didn’t mind.
 |
| Picture by Svein Frydnes |
I believe that one of the key points in Bloodbound’s history was the tour with Sabaton and Alestorm across the UK in 2016. Was it Bloodbound's longest tour so far?
Yes, I think so. We are not able to go to long turs all the time. We laso toured with Sabaton and Hammerfall in 2009, but I think the tour you are talking about was the longest one. The tour was a great experience. We’d love to return to the UK but for some reason we haven’t managed it yet.
You’ve played in the USA 2 times but have you tried to tour there properly?
As matter of fact a couple of years ago Sabaton asked us if we wanted to go the USA with them. I think that was right before the pandemic. But we couldn’t mak it with our jobs, kids and everything. So we had to turn it down. But it would be interestind to do a proper tour in the States someday.
Wow! I believe that many bands would kill for an opportunity to support Sabaton in the USA!
I know. (Laughs) But we are not like othrs bands, and we said, “Sorry, we can’t do it!”.
Don’t you think that you could achieve bigger popularity and sales, if you had decided to concentrate on music full time?
We haven’t thought about doing it full-time, because it’s a big risk to take. We would sacrifice a lot: houses, jobs and so on. And what if it doesn’t work out? We just wanna keep it on our current level and we are happy with that. And when you are not a full-time musician, I think it’s more fun as well. When we meet and play together, we always have a lot of fun. And when it’s your job, you do it all the time, it’s more like a work.
Are there dreams and goals that you haven’t achieved with the band yet?
As I said, it would be great to tour properly in the States just for the experience of it. And also I would like to play more shows in Japan. And to tour with Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Also Sabaton are a really good band to play with. We did a few years a show in Prague with them in front of fourteen thounds of people, I think. That was nice.
What about Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania? Have you been asked to play there?
For some reason we haven’t played there. We played in countries like Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia, but never in those countries you are asking about. So if someone wants to invite us to a big nice festival, we will definitely go.
To round up the interview I want to ask you about the song “1066” from your latest studio album “Tales of the North”. It is about the battle of Stamford-Bridge which marked the end of the Viking era In Europe. Does it mean that the band is done with the Vikings theme and ready to open some new chapter?
I actually talked about this with Tomas yesterday (the interview was done on March 27th, 2023), and he said it’s not totally closed and we might do something related to the Vikings’ history in the future but it’s too early to say right now. Tomas writes most of the lyrics, he comes up with all the concepts and I focus on the music first.
As you mentioned earlier, you already work on some new ideas. So what fans can expect?
Musically most of the material is related to out last albums but we also have some new elements. They are not like on “Tabula Rasa”, not in totally different genre, but we always try to do it better and better all the time and keep our music fresh.
Fredrick, thank you very much for the interview. Do you want to wish something to whoever will read this?
Thanks for you support wherever you are from, for being interested in Bloodbound and following us for many years. We have great fans!
Thanks to Mona Miluski (All Noir agency) for making this interview possible!
Visit Bloodbound's Facebook page for the latest news.
Purchase "Tales of Nosferatu" here.
No comments:
Post a Comment