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BACK
THE
CROWN
13-Year-Old with a Gun
By Alex Ristic
With all due apologies to Flotsam & Jetsam, we just had to paraphrase
their song "12-Year Old with a Gun" because it fit so
perfectly with Sweden’s The Crown’s latest release, Possessed
13.
You see, the "possessed" part comes from the fact that
the band says their music sounds possessed, with energy, aggression,
and all those good things, and the 13 comes from the fact that the
band is now 13 years old.
In addition—not that you would expect less—the music on
Possessed 13 does hit you like a proverbial bullet, with high-impact
old-school death metal riffing, and as the melody runs through your
ears, it is akin to the bullet smoothly traveling through your body,
until the end when it passes through and leaves a messy trail, much
like the corpse-rotting vocals of Johan Lindstrand.
"That was the thing," says guitar player Marko Tervonen.
"We missed the tenth anniversary, so we’re celebrating
13 instead. It’s more rock and roll," he laughs. "After
we realized this year we’d been together 13 years, that’s
when we decided to use the number 13 for the title. Magnus came
up with the word ‘possessed’ because it definitely describes
what we’ve been doing for 13 years. The mentality, the attitude,
it’s always been about the music. Out of 24 hours in the day,
at least 10 are about the band or the music. It’s just such
a big part of my life I can never switch it off. I’m fucked
for life." More laughter.
Thirteenth birthday parties are a special thing. Although, (at press
time) there haven’t been any anniversary box-set announcements
or other grandiose gestures, you do have to look at the bigger picture.
How many bands survive for 13 years? For every band that persists
that long, there are perhaps three to four as many signed acts lying
by the wayside. And with that in mind, the members of The Crown
have made their own preparations for their recording adolescence.
"Well, this album is special for us because there’s a
lot of old riffs on this album. For this album, we really emptied
out all of our death metal ideas. We took riffs and ideas from as
far back as ’91/’92, some really simple death metal riffs
that we’ve combined with new riffs. Some people have said it
sounds pretty old school, and it’s true because they are 13-year
old riffs blended with new riffs. It’s definitely some kind
of monstrous diary."
It’s not just in the writing of the songs either. Lots of work
went into Possessed 13, including the photo shoots, artwork, the
production, and even the final mix. Tervonen gives away several
of the details, starting with the photos that the band took for
the album.
"Well, this is definitely the first time we put money into
the photos, and maybe some thought behind it. What we have always
done is let the music do the talking. We’ve never had any controversial
stuff, but yeah, this time we kind of agreed, with the cover art,
to have this horror theme on there. Every damn death metal band
has done graveyard photos, but we did it because it fit the theme
of all the songs. I wouldn’t say image is important, but we
do have an attitude, like Metallica around ’86, where we just
go up on stage with the clothes we woke up with in the morning.
It’s not like we put on a costume, and the attitude comes with
it on stage. We bring on a very honest feeling on stage."
The production is quite different too. The drums are down in the
mix slightly, but don’t worry, you would have to be deaf not
hear Janne Saarenpaa’s precise playing. But what’s more
noticeable—and a 13-year first—is the chunky bass coming
through, with lines so thick you can stab them with a fork.
"The bass is finally there. That was something I remember Janne
was thinking about, but he always said ‘the bass needs to be
up there.’ But I was always thinking that death metal is about
the guitars, so the guitar should be the dominant instrument with
the drums. But we tried out with the bass, and for this album the
sound on the bass is also very aggressive, so when we tried different
mixes, and the bass was up it was like 20 per cent more power right
there. And that was something we’d never done before, with
the bass that high in the mix. It gives that Lemmy feel to it,"
he laughs. "If you’ve seen us live, Magnus [Olsfelt] has
a loose, rock ’n’ roll style, but he’s a very, very
good bass player, a very tight bass player. And I was actually surprised
because I’ve always looked at him as a rock ’n’ roll
dude, and when I heard the bass separately on the mix I was like
‘damn, it’s tight,’ and there was no question; we
could bring it up. It’s about time, actually, that the bass
is up."
Even the tracking on the album was accorded a special significance.
Tervonen related to us that the songs have kind of a horror theme
interwoven through them. Although not a concept album à la
King Diamond or Edge of Sanity style, there are threads related
to terror throughout the material. This is one of the reasons why
the album is split into three acts. Although, in another interesting
twist, the songs also seem to separate into the three acts in a
stylistic manner, with the straight-ahead death metal songs in Act
I ("Initiation"), the more melodic tracks in Act II ("Exaltation"),
and the more experimental numbers in Act III ("Annihilation").
"There was a lot of thought behind the order of the songs,"
Tervonen affirms. "I agree that the first couple of songs on
the album sound like the most typical Crown stuff, and then it gets
more interesting and experimental; like with the song ‘Bow
To None,’ I think that’s one of the most experimental
songs we’ve ever done—really different, a unique kind
of song. It even has five seconds of clean vocals. And also, the
instrumental songs; that’s also a very different approach from
us. For every album we’ve always tried to make one or two unique
songs. On Deathrace King there was ‘Dead Man’s Song,’
and that was a very different kind of song, and this album has more
of those unique songs, I think.
"The good thing is that the songs do work if you only listened
to one part in the three acts. When we agreed on the horror theme
of the album, we wanted to use the terms from theatre, like having
three acts there. Magnus said once that there was a ‘red thread’
there with the lyrics, like the final ‘Annihilation’ part,
it’s like going in for the kill, very ‘end of everything’
there. For the lyrics, it’s difficult for me to comment there,
because I don’t know what the hell he’s writing about,"
he says with a laugh. "He writes very complicated and very
simple at the same time. He has a very unique style, and he always
mixes it with a black sense of humour in there as well. He has a
unique style, and that’s one of the reasons he takes care of
the lyrics, which aren’t typical death metal lyrics, I think."
If those little special touches aren’t enough, how about the
tentatively planned North American tour for 2004?
"Hopefully we return with a bigger show. I think this album
deserves something cool to include, like lighting or projectors
or something."
Yes indeed. Thirteen years together as a unit is a long time when
you think about it. It’s no small feat, and one that should
be lauded, especially when you consider The Crown’s body of
work, and the fact that the vast majority of their material is quality
stuff. Tervonen reflects on yesteryear, and how it’s had an
impact on the band today, and perhaps even into the future.
"When we started playing… Actually the other guys started
to play without me for a few months, and when I joined the band
I was like, ‘All right, let’s tune the guitars.’
They were like, ‘What?’ They had never even heard of tuning
guitars. That’s how much of being beginners we were. On the
bonus CD that comes with the album there’s a song called ‘Last
Ride’ which is the very first recording we ever did in ’92.
I think you can hear a very strong will behind it," he laughs.
"The talent isn’t there quite yet. It’s quite funny
to listen to the old stuff. I remember when we started to have a
few songs, the next goal was to do a demo and hopefully get a review
in our favourite fanzines and stuff. But, we just grew from there,
from the second demo, we had interest from labels, it was like,
‘Shit, all right. Let’s do an album.’ And the next
goal from there was to make a music video, then to tour. So for
13 years, from where we are today, it’s been a very steady,
but very slow way up. Some people ask me, ‘How does it feel
to be one of the biggest death metal bands in Sweden?’ We are?
Because it feels so slow, how we have grown popularity wise. I still
feel the way we did 10 years ago, where it’s fun to go to a
rehearsal room and have fun and play. Suddenly you have to do an
album… Of course we do everything very seriously, but we still
have a very fun and loose attitude toward everything."
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