eSpudd exlusive interview, 1
Domination: An interview with Lord K of The Project Hate
I approached Lord K with the idea of doing the biggest and most in-depth interview on The Project Hate to date. I didn’t realize just how monumental this task would be. After a week of multiple question and answer phases, I realized that I had to stop somewhere. K was never at a loss for answers, and I was never at a loss for questions. Finally I just put a stop to it so I could get this massive interview with Lord K done. This interview starts out at the very beginning. I ask all the needed background questions of K so we can get to know him and how he brought himself to where he is today. After that I focused solely on The Project Hate. In those pages of the interview you’ll find out all about how and why Mia left the band, what would happen if Lord J for some reason where to leave The Project Hate, and the story behind the now infamous “Deadmarch Session Tapes” (which happened while conducting this interview). There are plenty more questions that I still have to ask, but I’ll leave that for the next interview.
Jayson [Spudd]: Let’s start off easy K, so the people at home don’t get too overwhelmed at first.
Lord K: I´m fucken jacked up, pissing gasolin and vinegar. Let´s get this fucker rolling baby!
Jayson: When did music (writing and recording) become your life’s path?
Lord K: Damn, bringing that up reminds me of my splendid age and the fact that I have been doing this shit for almost 20 years or something. I remember this so clearly actually. Back being a kid, I lived in the north of Sweden during my first years in school. In Örnsköldsvik, the same city that brought us my hero Peter Forsberg. There was this band from there called Roar who played simple hardrock that I happened to love. I went to every show they did and got to meet the guys and they gave me their demos and shit. I absorbed it, everything about it and realized I wanted to do something myself. I also hung out at this place where two other guys always played drums and guitar. I just sat there, studying what they played and then went home and took my sister´s accoustic guitar and tried to play the same shit.
I still remember the first two riffs I ever learned on guitar… One was a ballad by Mötley Crue from the “Shout at the devil” album as well as a riff that this guitarist did. That´s everything I played for a long time and I was chuffed with that for the time being. A classmate happened to have a drumkit in his cellar which meant I spent alot of time at his place banging away for hours. Another mate in my paralell-class was a drummer as well, playing in a christian band called Crusader if I remember it correctly. His last name was Haake, his cousin is Tomas Haake of Meshuggah. It´s a small world. Eventually this lead to the fact that I started to record some poor attempts of songs, accoustic guitar only, on a simple taperecorder. This is how it started… In 8th grade I moved and finally got to start my own band. We did a demo and around this time I understood this is what I am destined to do. I played drums for nine years and did some guitars on the side all the time. Now I play everything I get my hands on, keyboards, bass, guitars, drums…. I think I was meant to create music since day one, weird I have that talent as musicianship isn´t running in any of my relatives or my family…. It´s good to know I´m one multi-talented fucker and that the music I do is embraced by people. A lot of people can play music, not too many can create domination. But I can. And I will continue to do so.
Jayson: What were your early inspirations, and when did you realize, “I can do this, but fucking better!”?
Lord K: I realized fast that I would do music better than most. What trigged me was these guys, 10 years older than me, bashing away on their instruments, playing everything better than me at the time. Line them up today and I´ll beat all of them in skills. It didn´t take long until I was at their level back in those days, though I was 10 years younger. I can´t settle for 2nd best and I fucken won´t. I concentrate on being as fucken good as I possibly can be with everything I do. I can´t play guitar solos, I never wanted to, I never practiced it, so I don´t. I can´t sing, so I won´t do it. I know my limitations. But few people answers to my standards, I have been lucky enough to play with the best of them… As far as inspirations go, this is also easy… Iron Maiden naturally. I grew up listening to Kiss, Bon Jovi, Treat and all these non-grim and necro bands. It changed when I got to hear Venom, Helloween, Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and so on. That music nailed me on the spot and I´ve been lost ever since. I have never had a problem listening to alot of different musicstyles and this definitely helped me develope my own style and my own music. Countless are the times when I was sitting listening to Helloween, picking out some of their stuff. Same goes for Metallica. You know the drill… Funny thing now is that I beat the crap out of any of those bands today.
Jayson: What was the first instrument that you played? How soon was it after that in, which your life would change?
Lord K: It must have been the accoustc guitar then I turned to drums as mentioned before. I also had 2 other great friends where I lived at the beginning. One had a electric guitar and the other had a huge drumkit. This made me start to practice the doublebass drumming. Going from a standard kit to a huge one opened the world to me. Playing a electric guitar was just so massive too, and needless to say, I spent many hours at these guys´houses. They played quite alot, but they never actually burnt for it. They just had the stuff and played it. I played as if my life depended on it. Every fucken time. This brought me to what I am today, those guys never made it anywhere.
Jayson: Do you have any musical schooling? Did you ever take guitar lessons or just self-taught?
Lord K: I never took a lesson in my entire life. But I have been very fortunate to play with some of the best musicians I have ever heard and/or known. One guy who deserves everything good in life is Tobias Ander. He has inspired me and developed my guitarplaying to an extent it´s almost silly. Twice in my life, I have felt some kind of magic when I play with people. Tobias is the first, our current guitarist Petter S Freed is the other one. Petter inspires me like Tobias did back in the early 90´s. Working with these people, seeing them play, absorbing the stuff they do and develope your own style by doing all this beats everything. I´m very fortunate to have been able to experience this feeling, not once, but twice. Few people get to do it once. I thank them, without these guys I wouldn´t be where I am now. Actually I would, but they still deserve my thanks.
Jayson: What band, group of bands, or person(s) (other than yourself) influenced you to start making music?
Lord K: I think I covered this pretty much earlier on. A few guys in particular. The guitarist and the drummer that always jammed. The band Roar. Tobias (not the guitarist, the guy with the huge drumkit) and, listen to this, Björn Borg (the electric guitar guy). Yes, Björn Borg, not the tennisplayer though. Then we have the bands, Europe, Maiden, Kiss, Helloween, Tytan, Anthrax, Stryper, Candlemass, Agony, Metallica, Venom, Bon Jovi, Dokken etc etc etc… Million of bands, one worse than the other but they all inspired me in some way. It´s fun nowadays… Candlemass was a huge inspiration for me during many years. Now in 2002, mastermind Leif of that band plays MY riffs in the rehearsalroom. Weird how shit turns out. I know some kids look up to me, having me as a idol or whatever, I was the same way when being young. Now it´s more like, “Cool to meet you, everything you did since 1995 sucks man, want me to help out with some songs to get things back on track?”. It´s just regular fuckers, I´m not easily impressed anymore…
Jayson: Can you still remember your first concert?
Lord K: Hell yeah. But let´s make it the first metal-concert as that´s what I guess is interesting. I did see Roar a few times but that doesn´t count. Candlemass at Kolingsborg in Stockholm in 1988. Messiah put his foot thru the floor during a doomdance. First and last time so far. I´m glad to have witnessed it. Ice Age and Agony played too. Right after that I bought the one and only album by Agony, and still today it beats the fuck out of almost everything. “The First Defiance” is such a masterpiece it´s silly. The first really big concert I saw was Slayer in 1988 as well, in Stockholm. Candlemass wasn´t really big at the time so Slayer was the first big one if you get my point.
Jayson: What was the first song you wrote?
Lord K: That I don´t remember actually. I have tapes and shit with alot of cool stuff from the late 80´s/early 90´s but I don´t know what the first one was. I´m sure it was really good though.
Jayson: What was your first band, and what influence and input did you have upon that band?
Lord K: Legacy. Great name if just we wouldn´t have found out that´s what Testament was called in the beginning, hahaha…. We had this huge Kiss-fan on guitar and vocals. He was terrible. Tried to copy all of Paul Stanley´s moves and play at the same time, with no success. It sounded like shit but we recorded a demo and played a few gigs. Those were the days… I think I have bits and pieces somewhere from our first gig, as well as my first gig ever. We were well known in our city, imfamous might be the appropriate word, hahaha… We did some homemade bombs which we blew up on stage and destroyed the whole floor. A fucken wonder no one died… As far as my input at the time goes, eventually I started to bring my ideas into this band, the guitarist originally wrote the songs, with me helping out we turned decent. Good for a first band even. I also did most of the lyrics and turned the subject around from love-issues to die-issues. Sentenced looks like a fucken Disneyland band in comparison. This was depressing shit, back in 1988.
Jayson: Other bands (including your influence and input)?
Lord K: I played drums with House Of Usher for some years, had a great time with these guys. Martin of the band later joined At The Gates. We never called it quits, we just drifted apart. I did 2 demos with them, one of them I still love and my drumming is great. Braincancer was a band we did a demo with. Later some of the guys in that band and myself formed Leukemia. Mattias of House Of Usher played guitar and bass on our demo and the first album. I played with Cemetary for a while, doing drums, wasn´t that serious though. Did some rehearsals with Grave for a tour that didn´t happen. Rosicrucian is another band I drummed for, they did 2 albums, I played in between those albums. I´m probably missing out on some bands here but it´s not like I care too much about it either. All of these bands helped me to be where I am today naturally. They all brought different sides out of me and it has been of big help. You have to start somewhere you know…
Jayson: How serious were these bands, and how far (record deal, albums, touring, etc) did each one end up going respectively?
Lord K: I knew this was coming…
In no particular order: Leukemia: Innocence is bliss (demo 1991), Suck my heaven (album Black Mark 1992), Grey-flannel souled (album Step One Records 1993). Lame: This is the same band as Leukemia, we only changed name. One album called “Love”, recorded in 1994 and never released. Still this day I love this fucken piece. Hopefully we´ll release it sometime. Braincancer: Antiquated Future (demo 1989 I think) Legacy: Selftitled (Demo 1988) House of Usher: We did 2 demos with me and they released a single with another drummer before I joined. can´t remember the years for these 2, but I think it´s 1993 or 1994. I´m probably forgetting something here… We never toured with any of the bands, played a few gigs here and there, nothing more. Leukemia got pretty far and were kinda well known and liked. I have no idea of how much we sold but the last royaltystatement for “Suck my heaven” said something like 5000 if I recall correctly. The other one I have no idea about. The demo did some 500 copies. If I forget something here, we´ll correct that when I´m drunk, ok?
Jayson: What were you doing during the early years to make money to be able to live and buy new equipment?
Lord K: My mom supported me all the way. I don´t think she ever enjoyed my playing but she was always supportive. I didn´t buy my own electric guitar until 1987 or something and that I did by myself. I have no idea where I got the cash from though but I probably sold drugs or something hahah… Later on all hell broke loose and everything I bought was instruments, now I have quite a fucken arsenal of equipment. 4 guitars, keyboards, drummachines, 4-tracker, sequencer, Dat-player and so on. This is everything I am. This is all I wanna be.
Jayson: Was there ever a time when you thought, “Fuck it. I’m out of here.”?
Lord K: Never. Giving up is not a option. Not for me. I know what I´m here to accomplish and nothing will stop me. I´m put here on earth to provide domination to the disciples and so I will continue to do until I can´t fucken play no more. Ofcourse we all had our fair share of shit happening but I never considered to fuck it all and leave the scene, I just create more. I can´t understand people who just one day gets the idea of not playing any longer….
Jayson: What was your biggest personal challenge during your early music career?
Lord K: The time when I felt I had gone as far as I could being a drummer without taking lessons and having to really think about if I wanted to give that up to concentrate on guitars. That was very hard for some weird reason.
Jayson: What was the biggest mistake that you made during that time? Best decision?
Lord K: Lemme put it like this. People knew me as a great drummer, not a great guitarist. If you are as good at playing hockey as you are at playing soccer, but you feel you wanna concentrate on hockey becoz that´s where your heart is, will people telling you to stick with soccer have an effect on you? Not for me. People thought I was a fucken idiot to stop doing the drums, but I felt I had to go for what I wanted to do. My choices are my choices naturally. I can easily say I made the right decision and I don´t hear people complaining anymore. Gimme a few weeks and I´ll be as good as I was when I stopped doing the drums. I just have to work up the stamina.
Jayson: How is the support from your family? Are you close with your family? Should I have totally avoided over this question?
Lord K: I don´t mind at all. My mom and I are close. I have three sisters as well which I know two of. My “dad” ran away when mom was six months pregnant with me. I think I have seen him once or something and I don´t care. Mom did a terrific job with raising me, letting me go my way, do my thing, create my hell on my own. You won´t see me bitching about family-matters, I wouldn´t wanna be raised any other way. Fucken mom wears a hooded TPH shirt every time she goes out to the pubs with her friends. She´s proud of me and she should be. She raised one cocky Lord and it was no easy job at times.
Jayson: When did your “Hate” for the Christian religion start?
Lord K: It´s developed over the years. When I was a kid up in Örnsköldsvik (a very christian place even) all of my friends were religious, attending to meetings and shit some times per week. naturally they brought me with them some times. And I gladly went along for the sole reason that after 2 hours of preaching you had the possibility to build modelingcars/planes or whatever it´s called for a few hours. It was worth it. Even at a early age I spotted the fakeness in their religion, how brainwashed they really were. It was a impossible task for them to try to get me into their inbred family, but they sure tried. I have strong opinions, I always did and I don´t rely on religion to make my choices. I just let Satan show me the way, but I decide myself what way I wanna go. But he´s a great sport.
With that little amount of background of Lord K, let’s find out how The Project Hate started…
