Damn, that was for Inferno then.

Yeah, so we have some catching up to do.

Definitely. I thought you were going to say something like 1993 or something.

No, it’s only been four years but that’s a long time.

Yeah, it is.

You guys have done some really cool shit like last year I guess you put out your When In Sodom EP in time for June 6 of 2006.

Yeah, originally we thought that we were going to have the Serpent Saints album out at that time but in the end we decided to put the EP out. It was an idea that we had from the start but we just fell behind quickly on the deadlines. First we scrapped the idea to do the EP and then we thought why not, we want to do it.

Yeah, because that date only comes around once in your lifetime.

Yeah, and over here we instead put the album out on 7-7-07.

First it was 666 and now it’s 777.

Got to hit them both to make the Serpent Saints.

There you go babe. You guys also put out a live album in 2004 called Unreal Estate.

Yeah, it was from a performance that we did with the Royal Ballet here in Sweden. This was one of the weirdest and best experiences of our careers. When the guy who recorded the show played it back to us, we were amazed for Entombed how good it sounded. We’ve never put out a live album on our own. Eric put out one that we did and released at the time in 1992. When it was recorded and we still didn’t want it released. When they put it out, we thought why not. It was originally going to be just a DVD but the editing has taken a little longer than we planned so we put the live album out and put a lot of the great photos that were taken by various photographers during the show. It was going to be a little teaser for the DVD but the DVD has yet to be finished. From what I’ve seen so far it looks really cool. I really want to finish that one too and put that out as soon as possible.

Okay, now how does a rough and tough death metal band hook up with the ballet?

That’s…uh…we don’t know. It was some crazy performance artists, kind of choreographers that we had never heard of but apparently they were well-known in Sweden. We were just ignorant about it I guess. We didn’t know who they were but they were big fans of the band and they were following us for quite some time. Then as things go they had this crazy idea and tried to get in touch with us through our website and we just ignored them for a long time because we thought somebody was just joking. We expected it to be a like a camera there where we finally agree to have a meeting with them. We thought it would be like a Candid Camera thing. Not knowing what we got ourselves into, we said yes to their crazy idea. They hadn’t asked anybody else. They had yet to speak to the opera house, the Royal Ballet thing and to tell them about their plans. We just thought this would never fly with anybody else and we didn’t think about it. Half a year later there is the call again and they’re saying they have a green light from the opera house and we’re like shit, how are we going to get out of this one? It was a great experience. It was so different from our world. This was a whole different universe. This house is kind of a little entity in itself with their own rules and their own bar underneath the stage. That was kind of nice. But we were kind of scared about what we were getting into because even though it was really fun to do, sometimes when something is too good it winds up being unwatchable or unlistenable. We were having too good of a time making it. I was amazed at the reviews and how people came and saw it multiple times. We were kind of part of the whole thing so we didn’t see the whole performance of course because we were facing the audience and a lot of things happened behind our backs. When I started editing that was the first time I actually got to see the whole thing the way the audience saw it and I was like fuck, this was really cool. I really want to show the whole experience. Even more then what the people saw who were in the audience. We filmed from all angles and behind the stage and under the stage. All the things going on. In the little film we were making, we wanted to show the whole thing. What happened when somebody was doing something on stage or if something else happened underneath. It was kind of cool to be able to see the whole thing.

I think it’s really cool that you guys are open minded enough to do something like that because a lot of times that really works out well. I remember when Metallica did that CD with the symphony and then KISS and I think Deep Purple did one too. It’s just amazing how rock and metal can sound so good with a symphony orchestra.

Yeah, really they are both bombastic. There are a lot more similarities than you’d think and I think that’s what the guys who came up with this idea for us, they thought the opera and the music that they do is a lot of times dark and there are a lot of the same vibes that go through it in hard rock and metal. I think it’s a brilliant idea and it’s so crazy and so wrong that it just ended up being very right.

I always like to think that Beethoven and Bach and those people were kind of the heavy metal guys of that period.

Definitely. Sometimes classical music when it’s not a wimpy Muzak thing can be very loud and powerful.

Yeah, because that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be thunderous and booming.

Yeah, exactly. It was really exactly what we needed at that time because after all, we’ve been around for quite some time and it was great to do something completely different from just doing the new album and doing the tour. We’ve been touring for pretty much straight 10 years so it was nice to do something completely different. Yeah, because you guys are the godfathers of death metal.

Of course.

Haven’t you always wanted to be known as the Godfather?

Always.

Did you guys replace your drummer?

Yes, through 2005 we had the new drummer actually fill in for Peter and the new drummer’s name is Olle. After the beginning of 2006, what we felt all the way through 2005 got to be really a fact. Peter needed to leave the band due to his family situation. We could have released an album worth of material that we recorded with Peter. We could have made that the new album and put it out on the date we set but we really wanted Olle to be part of this new album. We knew he was going to be in the band so we decided to make the EP instead. We were going to put the album out in the fall but with all the touring and the shows that we did, we didn’t have time to clear any shows before January 2007 so that was the first time we had to do the next session and record and write some songs which we felt made for a better album experience too. We wanted to get some more fast numbers in there.

I was doing a little bit of reading and I guess at one point you had a vocalist named Orvar.

Yeah, it was for a very brief period. I think it was ‘91 or ‘92 when LG wasn’t in the band for about a year because him and Nicke had some girl arguments. It was really childish stuff but we couldn’t find anybody that we felt replaced him so we tried out about one or I think it was two guys and then Orvar was the first one that ended up singing on the Crawl EP that we put out. But then for the album that we did, Clandestine, he wasn’t around anymore and we had another guy that is on the album sleeve but he actually just sings one line on the whole album. So after we recorded the album we just felt that we had to ask LG to rejoin the band. He did and it’s been great ever since.

What I read about Orvar is that he is now a TV host and a film critic. I was thinking that’s one hell of a leap to go from being a vocalist in a death metal band to becoming a film critic.

Yeah, it’s cool. He’s on national TV here so every now and again on talk shows they always have a question about who used to be the singer in Entombed. You get mentioned still from being in the band five minutes. I think this year even people have heard about it a couple of times on talk shows. It’s good for publicity.

It sure is. That just tickled me to death when I read about that. I was watching one of the videos that you guys did that were posted on You Tube. What do you guys think about the whole You Tube thing?

I think it’s great. I’m now getting into it because I don’t have nearly as much time to surf as I want to. It seems like a great thing.

I was so glad when I finally got DSL and I could start watching videos.

Yeah, it seems like a great way to spread whatever you want to do. I see a lot of record companies, if you want to see a video by a band, they just link it straight to You Tube.

A lot of bands have told me they don’t bother doing videos anymore because you can’t get them played on MTV.

Yeah, but on You Tube everybody can see it whenever they want.

Yeah, exactly. You’ve got You Tube now.

If we have our way we’ll make 10 videos for the new album and make it into a film or something else. Just because of the Internet thing. You can show whatever you like pretty much.

Yeah, you don’t have to go by anybody’s guidelines or standards. You can make your videos as fucked up as you want to.

Yeah, LG told me the other day that he found somebody who made a video for our version of the “Hellraiser” theme and put it to film. So the samples that we have from the Hellraiser movie, he had taken the pictures and had made it like a video clip for that song which of course we couldn’t have done that for the song because we don’t have the rights. Somebody else did and it’s too much for anybody to complain about it when it’s up like that so it’s great.

You were talking about having done a DVD. When are we going to get our hot little hands on that?

I was halfway during the editing when we started doing the album. We had to take a little break and then it ended up being a two year break which wasn’t the plan. We really hope to have some time to finish that in the very near future. As I said it looked really cool as far as we have gotten so far. I really want the video to show that.

You need to finish that so we can see it.

Yeah, definitely.

You guys played at the Metaltown Festival I guess last month.

Yeah, two weeks ago. It was great. We weren’t even supposed to play. We played because Stone Sour couldn’t do the show so they had to add a couple more bands. Our album wasn’t even out yet but we really wanted to go down there and see Slayer and Mastodon so we asked our agent to say that we wanted to do the show and they sorted it out for us. Within two weeks notice we had to do some rehearsing and then went down there. It was really good.

So you got to play and see Slayer and Mastodon. Sounds like a cool time.

Yeah, the festival is on the other side of Sweden which is not too far away. It’s a five hour drive but it’s always great to be able to go to those things and play instead of just going there and not play. When you’re there, you want to play.

I was doing a little bit of reading and someone had done an article about you guys. They were talking about all of the wonderful things that come out of Sweden such as Swedish porn being the best porn in the world.

Of course.

Why is Swedish porn the best porn in the world?

I don’t know. I haven’t seen much since an old, old, old, old, old movie that was around when we were kids. The title makes no sense but it was the talk of the school yard. Somebody had it and it was an old lady using a very big sausage and putting it to good use or something.

See all the strange stuff that’s mentioned in connection with you guys? Entombed and Swedish porn. Tell me a little about Serpent Saints: The Ten Amendments.

For me it’s the best album we’ve made in a very, very long time. One of the reasons is that we took our time making it instead of whipping something out to go on tour. We felt it was time to spend a little more time on an album and try and make it as good as we can. It’s 10 songs about life in general. For me it’s a reflection of what goes on around us but instead of making it in political terms. We put it from a Satanist view.

I think a lot of politicians are satanic with some of the shit that they do.

Yeah, that’s the thing. We’re definitely not a religious band and not trying to push our beliefs on anybody. The way we use the word devil and Satanism and Lucifer in a way that we’re on the other side. Usually when people want to push their beliefs on somebody they may make the other party the devil. When something new comes along, the old gods are always the devils and the demons and that’s just ridiculous to me. Yes, we are the devils then. When somebody wants to come and push new beliefs on me, I’ll happily volunteer as the devil.

I always think it’s funny when religious people talk about how this person did this, that, and the other because Satan made them do it. Then somebody will be in court because they did something heinous and claim they heard voices in their head and everyone will be like “oh, that person is lying.” I feel like if you believe that Satan makes people do shit then why don’t you believe them when they tell you.

That’s the whole thing with the album. In one way it deals with it, that whole when it suits somebody to say that somebody’s the devil, then they will make their mother the devil if it gets them off the hook or whatever. That’s the whole thing about the Ten Commandments. The ammendments on the title is about how the rules will always bend if somebody wants something from you.

It seems to me that these Christians always talk about their god and everything. It’s interesting because their god does whatever they apparently tell him to do. It’s like they dictate to their own god.

Yeah, a lot of times when you have a satanic band, really what they’re doing is telling the same story as Bible wise. We just use it because it’s a nice metaphor. I like all the stories but for me it’s mainly stories. I don’t have anything against religions. For me people can believe in whatever they like and it doesn’t bother me at all. What bothers me is if somebody wants to push it on me or is trying to make me out to be anything else just because of what they believe in. You can believe in fly shit for all I care but don’t push your shit on me. It always comes down to where people usually never practice what they preach. You always think that you’re better than the next one and you always think that you’re right and somebody else is wrong. There will always be somebody else on the other side of the fence that thinks that they’re right and you’re wrong and you’re the devil. It’s on a kindergarten level and it never ceases to amaze me how people can take it seriously. It’s beyond me but I understand why people believe in this stuff. I believe in a lot of things too so that’s not the thing. It’s more when you’re trying to justify killing or whatever and making it out to be doing the right thing and everybody’s always doing the right thing. A lot of times it’s for money and it’s not at all about what is actually written and the rules always bend of course.

Here in the United States, in many states we have capital punishment and yeah, we’re going to kill this guy because he killed all these people. I feel that if killing people is wrong then how do you justify killing him. “Oh, well it’s not really killing, it’s an execution.” It doesn’t matter if you call it murder or execution or war, you’re doing the same damn thing. No wonder people get fucked up in the head.

Yeah, that’s the thing. It all depends on what you believe and some people justify murder and somebody would think that’s it not even murder. It all depends on what side of the fence you’re on.

How do you feel that Serpent Saints differs from Inferno?

Inferno we recorded and it came out live in the studio and this time around what we did was we just rented studio time and brought a lot of our own studio equipment and went in and wrote and recorded at the same time. With every album we try to do something different just to not get close to copying or doing something the same way as you did before. As soon as you feel comfortable and think that you know what you’re doing then it usually ends up being very boring so we try to change stuff around so ideally you would want to be like you don’t really know what you’re doing and get the kind of vibe that a new band has in the studio. Not too sure about the whole thing. You’re doing it because you have to do it and everybody is playing on the edge of their ability. We really wanted to try and get that vibe of having the energy when something is played for the first or second time so we recorded everything straight from the start almost. Like learning half a song and recording that and then working on another part and some of the songs are played one time. We did it a little bit backwards just to try that way of doing things but in the end we took a lot more time to finish things and think about things than we did on Inferno for example. On Inferno we just went in and we wrote it pretty quick and went in and recorded it even quicker and that was it. We didn’t have more time and we didn’t take more time to try out different things or redo parts and on this album we really wanted to work things through a little bit more the way you usually do. The way we did anyway on the earlier albums where we took more time on writing and making sure that we put as many things into a song as possible so that hopefully you’ll hear new things for a long time every time you hear it.

So basically you guys just walked into the studio with some ideas and just put it all together there in the studio then.

Yeah, and it’s also a good studio and they have good rooms. We brought our own recording equipment because you can buy stuff now. We finished the drums, guitars, and bass in that studio and we moved to another place and did vocals for some time and then moved even to a third place when we did the next session of the drums. We usually are in a very nice studio where you pay a thousand dollars a day and you can only be in there for a couple of weeks. We didn’t want that time pressure this time especially since we were writing at the same time. We didn’t want to deal with that kind of pressure. We made sure that we could spend all the time that we wanted on this one.

That’s definitely an interesting way of doing things. Are you guys doing any touring now?

Yeah, we were doing shows all the time here. Now we do festivals throughout the summer. We just came back from Ireland and this weekend we go to Venice, Italy and then the next weekend we’re in Norway. So it’s like every weekend there are festivals throughout the summer and then in the fall we’ll start touring. We start in Finland and do the rest of Scandanavia and then Europe and I hope we can go back to the States very soon too. We’ve started to look into that.

It would be awesome to have you guys over here.

Yeah, we can’t wait. It’s been a long time or it feels like a really long time. I think the last time was with Crowbar and Pro-Pain. That may be the last time that we were over so it would be great to come back.

Yeah, it always feels like a long time in between.

Yeah, a while back we went to Houston four tours a year and back then we had American management and all that so it was easier for us. That was almost like our home market for some time. Sometimes I want to go back to that time again. We did more American tours because it’s a great place to tour.

There are so many great extreme metal bands out there that I would love to see but they are never able to get over here as much as I would like.

It’s the whole thing with getting work permits.

It’s a pain in the ass isn’t it?

Yeah, unless you do it a half year in advance. It’s expensive but I’m going to try and do it now because it’s less expensive and then you can afford to go over and do a couple of one off shows as well which you never do. Usually bands just go and do the tour because it costs them so much to get the visas and everything straightened out if you’re going to do it right. Really time wise or travel wise, it’s not really a difference for us to travel to America to do a show. Sometimes if we go by bus, sometimes we travel 14 hours just to go to Denmark. If you have to play somewhere where you have to go on a ferry, travel wise it’s not really that different to go to America to play a couple of shows which we do all the time. This weekend we travel for one day to just go to Italy. We could just as well have gotten on a plane especially if you go to the east coast, it’s only a six or seven hour flight. It’s not much.

Italy is a beautiful place.

Yeah, but so is New York.

Yeah, that’s true. New York City has an awesome vibe to it. It really does. Someone wanted me to ask you an interesting question because she’s not really into extreme metal even though she’s been listening to a little of it. There was something on the Internet that had your band mentioned and it said that the lyrical content is usually death, violence, and religion. So she wanted to why you guys are fascinated by death, violence, and religion and how you guys feel it correlates.

What goes through our lyrics, if we can make one person just think twice about something, that’s where we’re at. Think for yourself. Whatever you get told, it seems like not enough people try to make up their minds and sometimes a little common sense seems so far away. Violence and death and religion I guess mirrors what I see around and I try to speak the language that seems to be best understood. The religion is that I like the stories. It makes for great metaphors. I see it both as just a whole way to getting a point across and the way I see it, it’s just stories like any other story. The more I read about how some things get called the devil. I can relate to those figures more than the other people in the stories. Just the thirst for knowledge and things like that which I don’t see what’s so bad about it. That’s just a fascination with Lucifer and all that but it’s not at all in a religious sense when we write about it. It’s more to take what’s cool in the language and then you store it and use it just to make it our own but we’re definitely not a religious band. A lot of the satanic bands that are around, the way I see it they’re as Christian as any other Stryper because they’re just telling the same story basically.

Yeah, because Satan is part of Christianity.

Yeah, at least the way most of us think about it. We use more of a vein of we’re on the other side. The way I see it, you’re always somebody else’s devil. Definitely the way I see it, the people that make that up live by those stories and want to have their way. I see those people as the devils. What’s good to you might be bad to me and vice versa. If you know that then hopefully you will be able to respect a little bit more what other people think and vice versa. You don’t have to go far to have neighbors arguing about stupid things and it just goes on and on. People will kill each other over nothing.

No kidding. We all have a little bit of that forked tail in us.

Yeah, the thing is it’s just so ridiculous when you try and make a religion out of it. What people do is what people do. It’s instinct. You put too many in one place with no food and people start eating each other. There’s no mystery to it.

I think a lot of people need religion because they don’t really want to take responsibility for their own actions. They’d rather blame it on something else.

Yeah, that’s so true. I don’t care what people believe in. People will always hurt the things that are around them. At least be man enough or woman enough to acknowledge that it’s you who do it and not because of something that has been written and rewritten and retranslated over the years and all of a sudden it’s going to be a law. That’s just ridiculous to me. I don’t hate religion or anything else. It’s all part of being human I guess. I just don’t like when people try and tell me what they do is right and what anybody else is doing is wrong and who is the bad guy in all of that. Usually in the great freedom fight when somebody gets in power, there’s always somebody else to come and say that they’re the new devil and start it all over. I just see it as that.

Here in the United States, the most fundamentalist Christians complain about how they’re being persecuted and they can’t do this and they can’t do that. It always turns out that the reason why they feel persecuted is because they can’t shove their bullshit down other people’s throats like they want to. It’s not that they’re being persecuted, they’re just pissed off that they can’t force their shit on everybody else.

Yeah, it’s amazing that anybody can take it seriously to actually have a serious discussion about it. It’s a little Red Riding Hood. Give it another 2000 years and maybe that will be what people kill each other over.

I can imagine what that will be like.

Yeah, that’s the thing. To me it’s just so ridiculous. It’s not even about if there’s a god or not. It’s what people kill themselves over or other people. Nobody can tell you what’s right or wrong. In the meantime what people get killed over is just ridiculous. There’s too many of us anyway so you might argue that that’s no loss but at least you get tired of all the talk.

A long time ago when you lived in kingdoms and you had feudal wars, it was understood that when you went to war against some other village, it was so that your feudal lord or king could continue to live in the lifestyle that he was accustomed to. Now, you still do the same thing. That war in Iraq is nothing more than to help Bush continue to live the lifestyle that he’s accustomed to. Now they just feel that they have to lie about it and call it something else but it‘s the same thing.

Yeah, you just have to make the story work for your century.

When you look at it, it’s the same thing. You’re just helping rich people get richer and you don’t even get anything out of it except a coffin with a flag draped over it. That’s crazy shit. What other things do you guys have planned outside of touring?

Just the touring and we definitely want to make some video stuff. The more the merrier.

And put them on You Tube.

Yeah, we need to make some crazy shit. Then we have more material that we didn’t finish for this album. Hopefully we’ll have time during the rest of this year to do a little bit more work on that and maybe record some more stuff and then we’ll see what we do with it. Maybe put out part two next year or the prequels. There are definitely more ideas lying around and more songs that we recorded during some of these sessions and other things. One song that we recorded the basic tracks for is a song that our old drummer wrote, Nicke. We talked about doing something with him for a long time and then he finally came around and sent us a song but he didn’t finish the lyrics so we didn’t finish the song. It’ll be interesting to see what that’s going to be like. So we have a lot of things lying around that we want to finish and then of course it’s the DVD that we’re just trying to find the time to finish and put it out.

If only there were more hours in the day. Did you guys use any of the songs off the Sodom EP on the new record or is the new record just completely new songs?

The “When In Sodom” song is on the album as well. Remixed but I think it sounds better on the album. Other than that, it’s all new.

Any other thoughts or comments?

Just hope people are going to get into this album. We put a lot into it and from reactions to it so far it’s been getting very, very good for us pleasant reactions. People seem to really get into it. I hope you will and I hope that everyone who reads this gets their ears on it.

I hope it’s not four years until we talk again.