eSpudd exlusive interview, 2
Jayson: When did the notion and idea for The Project Hate first come about in your evil mind?
Lord K: Back in 1999, after I killed the Deadmarch-thing. Being in the studio recording your songs just to fucken notice that the people involved in the band can´t fucken do their parts in the studio made me think “I´m never playing with fucken amatuers again, fuck this crap, I´m doing everything my way from now on”. I knew what I wanted to do all the time, I just didn´t realize I should do it all by myself to get it satisfactory. People not being able to play their instruments should be fucken shot or do something else. How fucken hard can it be to make sure you know the fucken songs correctly before going to the studio? Amateurs, fucken amateurs. The time the bassist took to put down one track of bass, I used to record the whole fucken album´s basslines. I crave fucken professionalism, that´s why I choose just to work with the best. Petter Freed and Jörgen Sandström.
Jayson: How did you go about finding a vocalist for TPH? How exactly did J get job?
Lord K: I have known J since the early 90´s and always loved his vocals. He´s the best deathmetal vocalist around without a doubt. Name anyone you want, Vincent of Morbid Angel, Mike of Opeth, Glen Benton of Deicide, anyone, Jörgen eats them for breakfast and spits them out. J´s vocals is a textbook example by the guy who wrote the book about deathmetal-vocals. It was a natural choice to ask him to do vocals, as we had played together before and knew eachother pretty well. He´s my best fucken friend and I´d die for him if needed. One phone call was everything it took. “-I have these songs ready, would you mind doing vocals fo it?”. He and LG of Entombed came over and from there it went. The rest is history. And muthafucken domination.
Jayson: How much does J contribute to the song writing of TPH?
Lord K: Nothing, coz I won´t let him. He likes to point out that some parts should be changed and the songs are too long and so on. I always tell him “Ok, I´ll change it”, then I add a minute or 2 instead, hahaha… He´s becoming a bigger part of the lyricwriting-process nowadays though, it only took me a year of craving it, so we work well together, haha… I can´t let J write any music, we´ll sound like fucken Zyklon if I let him, and that we don´t want. On a more serious basis, at times he might play some riff for me over the phone and it sounds good. I just forget how to play it after chatting to him for an hour about chicks we have fucked and all that essential crap you know. I need a small recordable tapeplayer for things like that. I don´t have the strength to even think about how many riffs and shit I have forgotten due to me never recording them on anything.
Jayson: If, and only if, J were to for some reason leave or have to leave TPH, what would you do?
Lord K: Kill the band for sure. J is one huge fucken part of this unholy trinity. It´s our thing. He can´t be replaced and won´t be replaced. Ever. I´ll fire him before that happens. Good thing with this band though is that none of us can see a end to it… For the sole reason that it doesn´t interfere with anything Entombed-related. We never rehearse, just a few days before a gig. I take care of all the business, most of the interviews and the site and all… J just have to concentrate on doing the best vocals around for the best fucken music around. It´s one fucken easy job to be excellent when excellent people and friends run this thing.
Jayson: Did you always envision a female vocalist to be part of TPH?
Lord K: Yeah, kind of. Not when I did the demo though I think. Dan Swanö did the clean vocals for that one. Just one part or something if I remember correctly. But I always knew that I wanted a chick-voice for something I was going to do. I´m a total sucker for women singing and I love Natalie Imbruglia, Alanis Morrisette, Pink and so on. I´m glad it turned out to be for this band, Mia did a excellent job for two albums.
Jayson: How did you find Mia?
Lord K: In a garbage-can. One of the guys in Deadmarch knew about her and asked her to join us. She did, entered the rehearsalroom and sang. I loved it. That´s the reason I asked her to join us for TPH later on. I knew her, liked her and knew what she could do. I´m thankful for the years with her. We are better friends and closer to eachother nowadays.
Jayson: Mia recently left TPH. Spill all the details here.
Lord K: I fired her for the sole reason she didn´t burn for this at the level I crave. She had thoughts that didn´t go along with what me and J wants to do with this band. If I feel like drowning the whole place in pig´s blood when we play, so we will do. I couldn´t care less about it being real blood or fake, Mia did. That´s just one small thing. We drifted apart, I couldn´t stand her and I didn´t wanna see her for the possibility of me strangling her. I was very tired of everything about her. It feels real good now, we are friends, we have talked it over and everything is all peaches and cream. I might end up doing some techno project with her in the future. She has a great voice and I love her with all my heart. Though we don´t share the same philosophies. I wish her nothing but the best, she deserves it.
Jayson: How is the search going for replacing Mia?
Lord K: This girl was going to join, she would have fitted perfectly. But she got accepted to the Music Institute in Hollywood, you know MI. Now we are getting the ad´s out there, talking to people, just checking over everything. Hopefully this will lead to anything good. If not, I´m not going to lose any sleep over it. The domination will continue to spread, one way or another. There´s info at the site about this as well. Anyone interested, check it out.
Jayson: Tell us how a TPH song is written, and the steps that you take to create dominating metal.
Lord K: This is different from time to time, but most often it´s with a guitar-riff. Other times it´s a thing on the keyboard. Itjust goes off from that. Sitting here with all my shit, going thru sounds, playing riffs, adding them together. I always make a rouch sketch of the songs before I really start to work on them. Like adding all those small things most of you will never hear if you don´t really listen to everything in the music. I can be stuck with a drumbeat for hours until I feel it´s just what I wanted. Sometimes I just have to walk away from the equipment, sit down, analyze the shit and have a go at it again. Alot of stuff comes pretty fast, some things takes time. You won´t see me writing a TPH song in a minute ever. We are more than that. There´s nothing like the feeling of completing a song, record it on my digital 4-tracker, put guitars on it and then listen to it. Just to notice there´s one drumfill I wanna change once the guitars are there, hahaha… But I do it so willingly. Loads of bands settle for second best, we don´t. I know we are the shit, we are fucken domination and I have yet to see a band come even close to what we create.
Jayson: Rumor has it you play all the instruments on the studio albums. Is this because you wanted full control, or that you didn’t want anyone else playing?
Lord K: I do it because I want it to sound as good as possible. I have a vision of how we sound, and the only one able to complete it is myself. There are very few people I want to work with and who answers to my standards. Petter is on of them. he was meant to play for livesituations only you know, but the thing we have together when we play can´t be describe. He´s ace an he´s going to do some guitars on the next album, coz he plays our stuff just as good as myself. Probably even better, haha… I love the fucker and am blessed to have him in the band. He´s had a great input in what we do now. Just wait, you will fucken see….
Jayson: There is another rumor that has to do with you playing keyboards when TPH performs live. Care to comment about this?
Lord K: Mr fucken Derek Hamilton of Rickety Old Shack must have been on fucken heroin that day when he said that. We had been talking for over a fucken year on AIM or shit and he´s a great supporter of the band. he should fucken know by then that I´m the fucken guitarplayer live, hahahaha… Sometimes I don´t really get Derek, things like that fucken made me fall off the chair. I thought he was kidding. but unfortunately he was not. I´m sure he knows I´m the guitarplayer now though, hahaha…
Jayson: Why don’t you play guitar solos? Will there ever be a “lead guitarist” even if they are just a guest musician to lay down some solos for you?
Lord K: I was never interested in playing solos. Solo´s suck for most parts. I don´t have many fave-sologuitarists to say the least. Petter is one of the best guitarists I know of. Alot of people can play solos, few can play appealing to me.Petter is one of them. James Murphy is another. They play withfeeling. I´m not interested in learning it, I don´t need it myself. We have had one solo on our albums I think, Petter did one for the instrumental closer “Dividead” on the latest album. That´s what I´m talking about, feeling….
This is by no means done…