IN FLAMES interview transcript.

Transcript of an Interview with Björn Gelotte​ of IN FLAMES  - 8/03/2019.
Full article here.

MAL-
On the line with me now, Björn Gelotte from IN FLAMES, Björn, thanks for taking the time to call.
BJÖRN-
Thanks for having me. 
MAL-
It's a great pleasure. Now you've been in the band since 95. How did that come about? How did you come about to join IN FLAMES? 
BJÖRN-
Well, it was actually my cousin's fault. This probably the wrong word, but it was Yeah, my cousin was really good friends with Jesper started this project and Jesper was playing drums at the time.
And I got the job because I kind of sucked a little bit less than him, I'm not really a drummer. But that's what IN FLAMES needed at the time. And, you know, it was awesome for me. I had the opportunity to start writing music right away and become part of it, you know, and that's sort of the payoff for being the drummer in a way but nobody got more happy than me when when the opportunities for me to play guitar arose, so yeah, I'm way more comfortable doing that. 
MAL-
What age did you start taking up both of these instruments, what happened? What was the deal?
BJÖRN-
I think i was probably 12-13 when I started playing the guitar. And then we had been at least where I was living at the time. We had a bunch of youth centers where they actually had rehearsal spaces with all the things you needed to have, like, guitars, spaces, amps, drums, everything, basically. And they even arranged shows every now and then for the kids playing and I just loved it. And it was such a cool experience that I just I spent all of my upbringing there basically at this youth center. So I played a lot of guitar, drums, this really cool as well and kind of, yeah, something that kind of, you know, stuck with me and I started working at the youth center later and helping other people to play and to learn those different things that was necessary to learn that's already I was probably 15-16 when I did that. So it was, yeah, it was awesome.
MAL-
So you've been there in IN FLAMES since 95, how much as a music scene changed and evolved from your point of view in that time?
BJÖRN-
Oh, the music scene. To be honest, I didn't really think about the scene when there was a scene because I was we were busy playing you know, there was no real comparison or competition. It was just like we were just lucky being able to do what we want it to do, you know, our own music in our own way in front of people that actually cared and knew about us so I never thought about it as a scene it's mostly the times it's times like this when you start thinking back at it when when people ask you like how was the scene but I think it was really it must have been really good because there were some venues small enough for us to play and other bands, you know DARK TRANQUILLITY, AT THE GATES, all those bands also based out of Gothernburg you know. I'm not sure there's the same opportunities nowadays but also it was different. Nothing was as quick as it is today we have everything right there for the taking the minute something is released it's all over the world right and the same with news and pictures and being part of individual band members lives in a way that you are today. It's super fast and that's the it's a cool thing as as a fan to be able to tap in on that. But it's also, sort of, people's attention span is much, much shorter and they don't really have to wait for anything. This means that people get spoiled, so that's different obviously. I wouldn't want to start a band today and go through what bands have to go through today because I think it's way way tougher. I mean, we had time to mature musically and time to you know find out who we were. Today you just thrown out there and it's really really tough again that people people's attention span, and there's so much on this buffet of bang for their music today that I think is really hard to distinguish yourself and I'm not envious, let's put it like that, but I'm yeah I'm really proud of people that are doing it, and it amazes me some bands what they come up with.
MAL-
Okay just one more question on 'back then', you enter 'IN FLAMES' into any internet search engine and the top phrase that comes back is 'Pioneers of Melodic Death Metal', now how does that sit with you?
BJÖRN-
Yeah again having been in this band for such a long time and in this kind of bubble that you're in you don't really look at yourself from the outside. And I think it's fair to point but I think there was many there were many bands coming out and especially the bands that recorded in the same studio Studio Fredman, you had all these bands, DARK TRANQUILITTY, AT THE GATES, that I mentioned before. You also had bands like ARCH ENEMY, SOILWORK. You had bands from Stockholm, OPETH and those guys that came in and recorded there. I think if anything I think Fredrik, the producer is the pioneer, we were just playing our music and being happy with it. So yeah, it feels weird when they say, but yeah.
MAL-
Okay, now three years between the 'Battles' album and 'I, The Mask', which has just been released on Nuclear Blast. What was the process for recording this? What process works for IN FLAMES?
BJÖRN-
Well, we learned a lot from making 'Battles'. We started working with Howard Benson. IT was the first time we worked with him. I was kind of you know, Having that big name and all that experience, we kind of figured that we got to listen to the guy you know, and and see what he can bring to the table. And it was amazing with this YEAH, we just learned so much from that guy. And we started working together for the first time really, I mean, we've done music together in the past, but it's always been like the music camp and then the vocal camp or the lyrics camp, and it's always been something that met sort of in the mix but now we can start you know, it could be just a few words written by Anders that triggered me to do something and then we took it from there and it's built into the song and and that's something we've never done before and Howard really really facilitated that. So going into 'I, The Mask', we knew his process, we knew his people that he was working with, Mike Plotnikoff, "Hatch" Inagaki and all those guys and the way they work in the studio. So we were super comfortable. We just went through basically with nothing, just a few riffs and we knew that we were going to be super creative, going to work with some of the best people in the world and just create something awesome. And that's exactly what happened. So we wrote all the way from the beginning of February, mid February, when we got to LA, and we worked all the way up until the last week of recording. So it was a great process. And a lot of good things came out of it, obviously. Yeah, so that's how it was.
MAL-
How was it replacing a drummer in the middle of all this?
BJÖRN-
Well, we didn't really do that in the middle. It was, Joe said before the recording before we were coming over to the US, he said he can't play drums any more, basically, his back is all messed up. I don't know if it's from an old injury, what it is, but he was constantly on pain medication it's simply not good, you know, and we were devastated obviously. And so you're there. Okay, let's just go there. And I mean, we'll figure something out. You know, we get there. Everybody's a musician in LA, right. So, but Joe really insisted he said, I want to do this. I want this to be what I do I don't want anybody else to do so so we did all the music, recorded everything to programmed drums first and then Joe just stepped in a couple of days and then did all the drums basics for for all songs but one on the record and then we were done we thought the album was done but then we had some more time way later and recorded two more and then Tanner did the drums on those so it was never like like in the process that it happened it was just way later. Since we didn't have any, we weren't in any hurry to release the record we wanted to release it you know together with some proper touring and just to be able to to play this stuff live we were still when we did the record 'I, The Mask' we're still on the 'Battles' touring cycle so we were in no hurry whatsoever so when we found this extra time we just recorded and Tanner's an amazing drummer and just went in and kicked butt you know, and it turned out great. So one of the songs are actually on the record.
MAL-
Okay, so the album is just come out. What's your response to have been like so far?
BJÖRN-
Well, people seem to like it in general. And the thing is that as soon as we recorded it and mastered it, and left it to the record label, it's out of our hands. So we've learned throughout the years, as long as we're really really happy with it. It doesn't really matter what people say. But obviously it's more fun to hear that people like it than that they hate it but it's been it's been really good. So it doesn't really affect what we do that so far, the response has been good. The songs sound awesome live and people really seem to get into them really quickly. And that's a good that's a good response. I take it.
MAL-
What happens for IN FLAMES now?
BJÖRN-
Well, we're on a the later part of the US run right now. So we're going to finish this one up and then we have some dates in the UK and France coming up right after this, believe we do Russia as well and then basically into the summer festivals in Europe and then we have way more touring coming up, hopefully we get to go to Australia very very soon, we love the place so it's just that it's the literally the other side of the world for us so it needs to be planned properly and we've been down there a couple of times and really really enjoyed ourselves it's an amazing audience down here and a lot of support for us so yeah we can't wait to get back nothing you know solid yet but it's talked about almost every day.
MAL-
Okay, Björn from IN FLAMES, thanks for joining us today. All the best of luck with 'I,The Mask', the album that just come out and hopefully we'll see you down here in Australia sometime soon.
BJÖRN-
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. And hope to see you guys soon.