One Man Army Interview

Saturday, 12 December 2009 01:00

One Man Army and The Undead Quartet were at the Ermal Festival and RIFF chated a little bit with them.


For those who don’t know you, who are One Man Army and the Undead Quartet?

Johan - Well, we’re just a bunch of “kids” from Sweden, from the Gothenburg area. I personally live in a town one hour from there, and he’s from…

Marek - … I’m a gothenburgien! We’re a Swedish band based in Gothenburg, we rehearse there, and the band is formed by Johan Lindstrand (the voice), by me Marek Dobrowolski (drums), Mattias Bolander (bass) and we have… and this is breaking news for you… because we have a new guitar player, Jonas Blom, which is replacing Michael as the lead guitarist.

What happened to the previous one?

Marek - Since we started the band, we’ve been on the road pretty much and for some people the road it’s not a way of living, it’s very stressful and requires a lot of work… and everybody differs in their goals, and… we had a great time together.

The band’s name…

Johan - When I first started the band in 2004, it was meant to be a solo project for me and I was referring to myself as an One man army, and then I thought the music was to cool to be left to a solo band, so I decided to get the all band… and I’m old and very inspired by the old rock bands from the 60’s that have one name for the front man and another name for the rhythm section, and that’s where the “undead quartet” comes in the picture. I think it’s pretty cool!

The last album…

Johan - The album before this, “Error in Evolution”, was a little bit too much melody; now on the “Grim Tales” we thought about bring the old school of death metal back, its more growling… we’re very proud of it, everybody is happy about it!

The conception…

Marek - We get to know each other’s during the years, on the road, as friends, as a family that we’ve become when you’re a band. So we thought, I thought that this album was the easiest one to record, because it felt so natural, it was actually what we all felt during the writing process, and then when we were recording it. We all developed that felling!

The new label…

Johan - It’s a ruff business out there, lot of bands… we had the two first albums released by Nuclear Blast, but then I got a call from a guy from Nuclear Blast that said “this is your best album so far, we’re very proud of it, but unfortunately we’re not able to push it the way it deserves to be push… so it’s better for you to go to Massacre Records to this one to get a better promotion.

Marek - And it’s not that we are in the Massacre Records, the album is licensed to Massacre but we’re still with Nuclear Blast…

Johan - … Nuclear Blast has a lot of big bands, and we’re tend to get on a lower level on Nuclear Blast and on Massacre Records we’re on a higher profile…

Marek - we have more priority …

Johan - … it’s a better situation, even if people say “oh… they are off Nuclear Blast, they’re down the drain” that’s not the case, we’re higher!

Plans for the future…

Marek - Well, we’re finishing the festival season very shortly, like in a month, then we’re going to start preparing for a new album, personally I’m going on a break ‘cause I’m becoming a father – breaking news :-) - we´re not going on a tour this fall like we did for the other albums, we’re just going to chill and then prepare the next album




Interviewer: Vera Gaspar
Cameras: Francisco Monteiro
Text: Vera Gaspar
Photos: Francisco Monteiro
Video-Editing: Francisco Monteiro

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