It was a movie studio, it became something different and the director didn't want to do anything on green screen or add anything extra, so everything had to be done the old fashioned way with real actors for everything and real special effects, real explosions and stuff, so it was all done in a very interesting way to watch. We could also include some very interesting characters - there's a story in the video based around the Warsaw uprising and in this story, there are some characters and one of them is played by Peter Stormare, which we always liked him and he's quite famous here in Sweden and we were always thinking he had good, cool roles in the movies he played and then we figured out that he was a fan of Heavy Metal and we kind of asked him and he thought the idea was really cool and was a different idea than normally he gets requests from bands who want to have him in videos, but he's never interested because they are normally kind of boring ideas, but this was something different - that's why he wanted to be part of it. And it was such a big project, such a big thing, that it included over two hundred people working on the set, so it was interesting, absolutely. We haven't seen the final video yet, but it will be available the first of August, so we are really looking forward to it and we think it's going to be a really killer video.

Phil: Yeah, I like the idea of doing genuine special effects instead of the green screen thing that everybody seems to be doing these days.

Pär: Yeah. Of course, it's kind of costly to do everything, but this was the way we really like it.

Phil: What are the odds that you'll do a North American tour for this album?

Pär: The odds are quite good. Really good, I think. We have been, for the last maybe two years, we have been talking to different bands and promoters in the U.S. and it always came down to "Well, we really like the band and you're cool guys, but you have no sales - you have nothing, you have no fans" and we say, "Well, there is a lot of fans", but they say "Ah, no - no, you don't have any fans" and we're like, "There is enough - please bring us on tour, we can prove it". And no band has ever done it before and now we have been in negotiations with some bands and now I think with the chart entry and the amount of interviews and interest in the band at the moment, I think that it would definitely improve our chances of going on a tour. And we have also denied all the offers we got from European shows and European countries and cities for January and February because we want to save that for North America. So that's the plan because this year we cannot make it because we're fully booked already with European shows. But next year, I'm sure that January and February's already set for North America. I think we're going to stake that plan and we already have several bands that are interested in bringing us with them or even  some that want to go as co-headlining bands and stuff like that, so I'm sure it's going to be that we will be able to come.

Phil: You told me that a lot of fans have suggested song ideas and you watched a lot of documentaries and read a lot of books to do that research - what would you recommend that you think is either really interesting or something that everybody needs to know about?

Pär: If you count the songs that we've written, some of these were really special and very unknown. On the new album, most of them are quite, sort of unknown. I still think that the story behind (the) Warsaw uprising is very important and very interesting. When we decided to write the song, I mean, we didn't know about it and then we were invited by the Warsaw Uprising Museum and we had actually had historians tell us the story, so we were like, "Okay, well this is interesting" and that was kind of the point when we decided we should write a song about this. So that was kind of special that we actually were in Warsaw and we got the actual historians to tell us the story. Not only finding it on the internet or by regular staff, but a fan was also a historian working on the actual memorial museum for the event that we were singing about. So that was kind of special.

Phil: How do your songs go over in the different countries with the war theme, given how people's positions were in the past?

Pär: Since it's World War Two, it's past, it's just the way it was. And it goes down very well, even though we bash the Germans quite a lot (laughter), we have a lot of fans in Germany. It seems to go well with it. Some people said "You shouldn't sing the song 'Attero Dominatus' because you're singing 'Berlin is burning!'" And when we first came to Berlin on the first show, we opened with the song "Attero Dominatus" and the whole crowd was singing "Berlin is burning!" So it doesn't have the negative effect that some people might think that we have on people. People like the songs and the songs are the most important - lyrics come secondary. But for us, it's important to write about something that actually matters and not just figuring out some made up stories or something like that. But the fans like the idea of real events.

Phil: Recommend a book for our readers and then explain why you recommend that particular work.

Pär: Hmmm… I read this book called "Berlin", simply "Berlin" and it is a straight fact book, minute by minute, everything that happened and I think that instead of reading a book that is made up, a story, like a fiction book based around facts, maybe - this was very, very clear fact. And when it's so real, but still so unreal because of the numbers and the amount of insanity that goes along with war, it becomes surreal, you know? You know that these facts actually happened, but you don't believe it. I mean, you don't believe that there was actually two million people going to war - that's quite a lot. But reading that book was… well, that's actually the way it happened and there's also including orders and including exact times when things happened. I think that was kind of interesting.

Phil: What exactly happened with your debut album "Metalizer" and Underground Symphony? Why did they not put it out like they were supposed to?

Pär: At that time, Underground Symphony had a lot of problems within their own record label, I think, and couldn't really agree on when or how to release the album. We just waited and waited and waited and waited and we got different excuses and when they finally said that Heavy Metal is dead, we should wait until Heavy Metal becomes popular again. I felt that was a stupid answer I'd ever heard, so that's when we decided "Okay, we leave it, we forget about the past, let's go on, let's record our new album" when we made "Primo Victoria" and went on. A few years later, we got back and we started talking to Underground Symphony again and they were very helpful and there was a possibility that Black Lodge could finally get their hands on it and release it finally. In 2007. Five years after the original release date.

Phil: Okay, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Pär: Well, I would like to give a big thanks to all the people who actually bought the album because it means a lot. Some people think that "Oh, I support the band by going and watching them," but the problem is we cannot come on tour unless people buy the album, so we are very thankful that now it went into the charts and that it got some attention around us. It helps us a lot and if people really want to support us, this is the first thing they should do and we are really thankful for that.

Sabaton's Pär Sundström

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

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Formed 1999
Dalarna, Falun  Sweden
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Genre: Power Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Joakim Broden:  Vocals
Rikard Sunden:  Guitar
Oskar Montelius:  Guitar
Daniel Mÿhr:  Keyboards
Pär Sundström:  Bass
Daniel Mullback:  Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

Fist for Fight: Best of/Comp. (2000)
Primo Victoria (2005)
Attero Dominatus (2006)
Metalizer (2007)
The Art of War (2008)
Coat of Arms (2010)

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July 22, 2010

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