#dec1999

TIAMAT

Interview with Johan Edlund by Ted Hinds

(conducted December 1999)

Is death the end or is it really just the beginning?  At the genesis of the Swedish death metal scene, Tiamat was among the first bands to gain international acclaim with the genre in the early 90s.  By the late 90s, as the death metal movement slowed, Tiamat was one of only a few to evolve beyond it’s dying scene and transform death metal into a viable form of rock and roll.

With albums like Wildhoney in 1994, Johan Edlund, the founding member and musical mastermind of Tiamat, incorporated the psychedelic influences of bands like Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath to break free of the narrow death metal stereotype.  In 1997, Tiamat took this direction even further in the dark and tempestuous A Deeper Kind of Slumber CD, which transcended many of the boundaries between metal, industrial, and gothic music.

However, in the wake of all this success, John Edlund continued to do the unexpected.  The new Tiamat album, Skeleton Skeletron, indulges another side of the band’s musical spectrum—good ol’ fashioned rock and roll.

“I wanted to do an album that was more straight ahead and based on song writing.  More basic with strong melodies,” claims Edlund, speaking from Dortmund, Germany the day after the release of Skeleton Skeletron.  Perhaps surprising to the underground metal community, the album even features a haunting version of  “Sympathy for the Devil.”  Says Edlund, “Rolling Stones leans in the right direction for this album, which is more Stones than (Pink) Floyd.”

In fact, Skeleton Skeletron, repeatedly reminds the listener of great rock bands like the Rolling Stones, as well as bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, with an energetic, jam-oriented style.

“Exactly,” exclaims Edlund.  “That’s how we work.  That’s our relationship as a band. We like to jam and keep a level of excitement.  This album is not so much based on computers and programming (as earlier Tiamat records).”

Tiamat, the band, has been marred with turnover since it’s inception.  The current line-up, featuring Anders Iwers and Lars Skold, is the first that has held together for two consecutive albums.   It seems like Tiamat has finally found its chemistry.

“It really feels like this, yeah, but I’ve felt like this before. People have come in the past and it seemed like it would work out, but things change.   I can’t be naïve enough to hope for it to be that way now.”

Another thing that hasn’t changed is the lyrical landscape that Tiamat leads its listeners across during its songs--a dark trail through the ruins of lust and madness.  Only this time, that trail is less fantasy and more realism, as Edlund explores his experiences in urban Germany.   “I don’t really know where (the lyrics come from),” says Edlund.  “I just let if flow.  I try to write on the road.  I take a keyboard and laptop with me.”

With the Skeleton Skeletron “doing very well” in Europe, the album has only recently hit record stores in America.  Judging by the success of Wildhoney and A Deeper Kind of Slumber, expectations are high for the album on this side of the Atlantic, and hopefully, an American tour!

“Not right now we don’t have any plans,” says Edlund at the suggestion of touring the States, cautious of making promises so soon after the release of Skeleton Skeletron.  Yet with a powerful new album to follow-up it’s glorious predecessor’s, it’s only a matter of time before the widespread attention Tiamat has earned in Europe spreads to metalheads everywhere in North America.