IN FLAMES Guitarist Discusses JESPER STRÖMBLAD's Drinking Problem, Illegal Music Downloading

March 21, 2009

A new audio interview with guitarist Björn Gelotte of Swedish metallers IN FLAMES conducted by Vassil Varbanov of Bulgaria's Tangra Mega Rock is available for download at this location (MP3, 5.5 MB). A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Tangra Mega Rock: We were a bit stressed a few weeks back when we found out that your fellow guitarist (Jesper Strömblad) was the reason for you to cancel some shows in the U.K. because he went to rehab. Was it that bad?

Gelotte: Well, as with every problem of this kind, it's not something that you want to tell everybody. It is something that you are sort of embarrassed about, but we've been living around this problem now for many many years. The thing is that with something like this you can't really force anybody to go to the doctor or to feel better. You have to wait until this person realizes that himself. And what happened is that it got to be too much and he had a breakdown and he realized when his body said, "This is it." He had to go and get medication, get some treatment and lock himself in for a couple of weeks and take it easy and take care of himself. And this is the only way of waking up, I think. I don't know how it is with other abuses, but with this one — it's kind of embarrassing. It's tough for him to realize it, but when he finally did it, now he's doing something about it. But it takes time to get back. And this is what we are waiting for now. At the same time, Peter (Iwers, bass) is having a baby. So, there's two members of IN FLAMES that are away. And it is not fair to the band to try and make it sound like IN FLAMES and also not for the people who want to see it.

Tangra Mega Rock: as far as I remember, this guy Jesper is your best friend within the band. it was the two of you that started — he played guitars and you actually jammed on the drums.

Gelotte: Yeah, that's how we started. My cousin is an old childhood friend of Jesper's. Me and my cousin knew each other really well back then; it's been a couple of years. IN FLAMES were looking for a drummer because Jesper was playing the drums and he probably sucked even more than I do when I play drums. So at that time that was what was offered and I thought it was a cool idea. It was very different for me. I come from a very rock'n roll, hard rock background and this was death metal, so it was very interesting for me to see how that worked. And then we all became best friends. We all in the band are very tight. You know how it is — when you live together with some people for 15 years, you become family. But for me and Jesper, it is a special relationship. We've known each other the longest, we've written all the music together. And that is a lot of sharing, so, yes. And this is why it hurts me a lot that I couldn't do anything about this problem before. Because, as I said, you can't force anybody to do something about it.

Tangra Mega Rock: You mentioned you are a kind of a family and that peter had a newborn. And as far as we know, you have two kids as well…

Gelotte: Yeah, two daughters. It's going to suck when they get older. They are already very beautiful.

Tangra Mega Rock: Are you jealous already?

Gelotte: No, they are still too small. But I will be the kind of dad that sits on the porch with a shotgun in my hand waiting for her to come home. No boyfriends until she is 35 and all of that.

Tangra Mega Rock: To what extent has having kids changed your life? I'm sure it did change your personal life dramatically in terms of daily schedules and stuff, because I do myself have two boys and it is a massive shock to the system… but to what extent did it change your mindset as a metalhead?

Gelotte: Well, musically, it didn't change anything. This is who we are, and who I am, and this is what I do, the only thing I know how to do properly. But it did change some other stuff. We're a lot more practical now. Certain periods and certain dates are more important to be off than others. It was a time when we could play whenever and wherever. But now it is different. You have to plan it a little bit differently. You have someone who is really depending on you and that you are really dependant on in order to function as well. I try to bring the kids on tour a little bit, do some travelling. It's fun for her, the oldest one, to see the world. The young one hasn't seen that much yet. I had Alva, who is the bigger one, in the U.S., Spain, France, England… in small venues, where she can enjoy life. But is surely is different — you don't go out drinking every night. But back to Jesper — that is one of the differences for him and why he ended up with that problem — his tour didn't seem to end.

Tangra Mega Rock: You started talking about downloads and stuff. The last few months the case with The Pirate Bay site (the world's largest BitTorrent tracker) was pretty famous up there in Sweden. So what is your opinion on that?

Gelotte: It's a two-sided coin. I don't approve of illegal downloading, of course, because that would be like shooting myself in the foot. But, on the other hand, I don't say illegal downloading is right, but I think the record labels are way too slow in the evolution of the music industry. Because the CD and the whole massive industry of record labels and all that is now obsolete. People aren't interested in that anymore. They want easy access to songs, fast and cheap. I don't know about free. But, I may sound naive now, if you put a fair price on a CD or on a download or whatever, people will buy it. It is a lot of work to download a song now. Buying a CD is expensive and buying a song off iTunes requires all this account registering and everything. But I think a lot of bands that are our size and our type of music can actually benefit from it. Because there are not many people who go to a record store and look for your CD but if they don't find it they order it to be delivered to their home. Most people, if they don't find it right away, they don't give a shit and they go to the next CD. So with downloads people may find out about us. And, hopefully, when they go to a show and they like what they hear, they might buy a CD later on. So it is bad for the big record labels and big artists who, like MADONNA, release only a single. That could probably affect their revenue.

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