IN FLAMES Drummer: 'We Don't Feel Any Pressure Whatsoever, Not Even From Ourselves'

Metal Covenant recently conducted an interview with IN FLAMES drummer Daniel Svensson. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal Covenant: You've been praised by the media countless of times, and each album you release sells even more copies than the previous one. How do you keep motivating yourself and do you never get tired of all the success?

Daniel: You can never have enough of success, but if things were starting to stagnate and we would be playing in smaller venues than before, I would probably have trouble motivating myself. I mean, we all have families and children and it's tough to be away from them eight and a half months each year. There are moments when the touring is not that funny, you know?

Anyway, we release an album, work hard promoting it with tours and that's it. We don't have the kind of pressure on us anymore that new successful bands have, when they suddenly have to make a second album which sells just as much as the first one. We've done eight albums now and all of them have done well, so we don't feel any pressure whatsoever, not even from ourselves. It usually turns out fine in the end.

Metal Covenant: So you haven't made up a plan how much longer you will continue and how many more albums you will make?

Daniel: No, we keep on taking one album and one tour at a time. We're getting old and we all have families and kids. If my wife would put her foot down and say that she can't take this anymore, I would understand and definitely consider quitting the band. At the moment I don't see an end to it though, so we'll probably be around for many more years to come.

Metal Covenant: You have many loud fans that prefer the old IN FLAMES albums…

Daniel: Oh, really…? (laughs)

Metal Covenant: Yeah, and these fans would most likely want you to only play old songs on your concerts. Do you listen anything to these fans or do you only listen to yourself and do what you believe works best?

Daniel: We obviously do what we believe in ourselves, but we have actually given many songs from "The Jester Race" a chance. And almost every time there is no reaction from the audience, they just stand there looking confused. Tonight we play one song from "The Jester Race", "Graveland", but the truth is that the new songs work better with the people that come to our shows. I mean, why should we listen to two guys on some Internet forum when the majority clearly likes the new material better? Since the really old songs were never written to be performed live, the effect is not the same. They are simply not much of live songs."

Read the entire interview at www.metalcovenant.com.