Having graciously postponed his pre-gig meal to conduct this interview Tomas Lindberg is remarkably warm throughout. Guitarist Anders Björler mentioned to GC downstairs that it was important to retain the essence of At The Gates. A statement the singer echoes. “The five of us have an identity together which has remained untouched. We love a lot of different music but we want to create within the framework of what At The Gates is so we are able to stay true but also move forward.”
At the top of the interview Tomas touched upon the benefit of playing in other bands in helping the members think about team work. Considering all the other outfits he and his colleagues are involved with (Disfear, Paradise Lost and The Haunted to name just a few) can we expect much in terms of touring?
“Logistically it is tricky but we have great agents. Vallenfyre have another drummer who can step in for them and I am no longer in Lock Up, there is no bad blood! Only good stuff. We all have our other jobs too. We all have Google calendar and book well in advance. Even if Martin has an Agrimonia gig in a squat somewhere in Germany we will work around that! We are still all very normal people and we don’t want to lose that grounded feeling. We don’t have to do this (At The Gates) to pay the rent. I think that has always helped and meant we have never had to water down our music.”
A teacher at Gothenburg University, Lindberg’s lyrical output is theoretically grounded and highly conceptual. Certainly far more highbrow than the standard death metal lyrics. “I enjoy delving into concepts and became more reflective when I started teaching. I have become more reflective as a person which I think also benefits how I work within the band.”
These comments will come as a pleasant surprise too many fans who (often wrongly) assume that musicians will earn oodles of cash from package tours and possess bank balances which are only matched by the size of the musicians’ egos. Lindberg charmingly recalls a recording Lock Up material with producer Russ Russell. “When I was recording with that band we used the beer metronome! I was singing ahead of the beat and a couple of beers helped me relax and record the vocals. That works well for punk and grind stuff but for At The Gates it requires a lot of focus! These days before gigs I have one glass of wine and just the alcohol free beer. I sing from the belly and the chest so I have to pace myself now over an eighteen song set!”
The much imitated and ballyhooed Slaughter Of The Soul (Earache) is an album dear to fans of the Gothenburg scene and American Metalcore scene alike, while proud of what his group have achieved Lindberg is keen to move on and progress with his music. “People talk about Slaughter… in those terms but it was a bit of a one dimensional, only aggressive record with similar songs stylistically. ‘Terminal Spirit Disease’ was moving in a different direction until things happened in our lives and we made a more pissed off record. This album is almost picking up from where ‘Terminal…’ was going. A darker more melancholic place.”
WORDS BY ROSS BAKER