ENTOMBED Singer Talks About 'Serpent Saints'

Holland's Lords of Metal e-zine recently conducted an interview with ENTOMBED frontman L.G. Petrov. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Lords of Metal: Last year you released the EP "When In Sodom" on 06-06-2006 and now a year later the new ENTOMBED album "Serpent Saints" is released. Why this gap of a year? Did something happen?

Petrov: Not really, back then we had written some songs, we had part of the album ready, but we also had a lot of shows back then. Having to do shows and writing music at the same is not a good combination, you know. In order to write songs, you really have to focus on it 100%, we like to be home to fully concentrate on it. But fortunately enough we did have a few songs ready to, because we promised a few people that we would release the album on 06-06-06. So in the end that became the EP, so that there was at least something that we could release. When we came back from touring we could concentrate again on doing some more songs, and that's what we did for a year.

Lords of Metal: Looking back on the career of ENTOMBED, I noticed that creativity or productivity seems to come in spells. You had a lot of full-length releases from 1990-1993 then a four-year gap and then constant releases again from 1997 to 2003 and then a four year gap again till now. Is there any explanation for this pattern?

Petrov: It will be eight years until the next album! (laughs out loud) No, as for the first gap, between "Wolverine Blues" and "To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak The Truth" it was a business thing. Record deals not being settled and stuff like that. We just wanted to play music, we even had songs ready, but we had to wait for record companies, so that was pretty frustrating. As for the gap from "Inferno" up until now we have lost some members and it takes a while to get into the new mode, being a four piece. We are doing everything on our own now, we are independent, so we also had a few things to learn, but now we have also done some songs for a new album. So the next album will not be four years from now.

Lords of Metal: One funny fact I discovered: not one member of ENTOMBED has actually always been part of ENTOMBED. Even you. What kind of impact do you think this long list of line-up changes has had on the career of ENTOMBED?

Petrov: It is always sad when you lose a member of the band, but obviously you want to continue so you always try to make the best of it. A band always will encounter problems, one way or another, when Nicke Andersson left the band, he was a big part of ENTOMBED, but we did not think for a minute that we should go and do something else. Continuing was the only thing to do. All the bumps in the road only make you stronger, we are actually doing quite fine now as a four-piece.

Lords of Metal: The full title "Serpent Saints – The Ten Amendments" hints at it being some kind of concept album. Is that the case?

Petrov: No, not really. We try to write songs about what we think about everything. And we write about the evil spirits that are involved in everything, and on this album we do not say what one should do, we just say, "What do you want to do." We just wanted this to sound sick and awkward and that when you listen to it, you get a strange feeling, like "Who are those people…" There are a lot disgusting things going on, but that is probably because we are disgusting, haha.

Lords of Metal: The second part of the title, "The Ten Amendments", seems to be some reference to the biblical Ten Commandments. What is the link or the play on it?

Petrov: Yeah, it kind of is the reverse. The Commandments say "You shall not," but we say "If you want it, then you can do it!" We do not have ten amendments that you have to follow, it's a wide spectrum, if you want to call it that. If I had to formulate something, I would say that "You are what you are," or "The things that you do will eventually be in your favor." It is what you do what you counts. "You shall not talk until you walk," hehe, something like that! I live by that myself, I talk a lot, but I do things too!

Lords of Metal: I noticed that in a few songs there are some scream vocals. Did you do them as well? And how did you get the children's choir for "When In Sodom"?

Petrov: Yeah, I did the scream vocals myself. It was kind of new for me, but I always wanted to sing like that too, it is just that the last few albums did not allow me to do it. Live Nico (Elgstrand, bass) will do the doubled parts. As for the children's choir, that is us too actually. We just took a microphone and went (high-pitched voice) "When in Sodom", that is the only thing you need. When we recorded the album we wanted it to be fairly simple. Especially since we only have one guitarist now, we wanted to stay true to our selves and we wanted to be able to reproduce live

Lords of Metal: This new record is the first that you recorded with Olle Dahlstedt. How did it go? Why did he replace Peter Stjärnvind?

Petrov: It was easy to fit him in. There are a lot of drummers around, but we had a list with just his name on it! He is a happy guy and has the right mindset to be in ENTOMBED. He is a great guy and he did not sit quietly in a corner being the new member, he just gave his opinions right away. Peter had some personal problems, so he had to concentrate on that, obviously. It was the right thing to do.

Read the entire interview at www.lordsofmetal.nl.