by Alexandra Mrozowska
– Senior Colmunist —
Buckle up and hold on tight, 220 Volt is back – as electrifying as ever! The legendary Swedish hard rock outfit returns with the new album titled Walkin’ In Starlight after long years of hiatus, their line-up refreshed by an addition of Anders Engberg (ex-Therion, ex-Lions Share) on vocals.
In the light of these recent news, Hardrock Haven caught up with the band’s founding members Mats Karlsson and Thomas Drevin to look forward with the new 220 Volt release – as well as to reminisce the ‘80s era a little bit.
Hardrock Haven: This year marks a return of 220 Volt to the rock scene. Does it feel good to be back after a little while?
Mats Karlsson: It certainly does, we’re very excited to see what people think of the new album. We put a lot of work into it.
Hardrock Haven: It’s been 17 years since the last full-length studio album of 220 Volt – Lethal Illusion – was released and nine years since Made In Jamtland. Why did it take you so long to release a follow-up to it?
Mats Karlsson: The band was active with an early line-up 2002-2008, we did two albums during that period. Peter Hermansson left the band in 2008 and me and Thomas Drevin tried to keep it together for a while but didn’t feel we got anywhere and just put that line-up to rest.
Thomas Drevin: We started recording an album with a side project in 2011 and got about halfway, during that process we talked with Peter and we thought we could put the band back together again, ‘cause we felt we had another couple of albums left in us. So we decided to give the band another go in 2012, and that’s when we approached Anders, and luckily he felt the music we wrote together was to his liking and decided to join.
Hardrock Haven: How do you think the music industry changed throughout this period? Do you think it’s for better, or for worse?
Mats Karlsson: I think some things are better, the fast and cheap way to distribute things. The way YouTube can really break a band is something new and cool. The bad things are that it’s really hard to sell records these days because of illegal downloading, things being stolen and put on the internet before release dates and stuff, lots of bootlegging, that’s not really helping artists. At least you want your album to break even, right? Then you can go do another one and that is what most fans want.
Thomas Drevin: In the ’80s it was difficult and expensive to make a record, to get a record deal. If you succeeded, you were out on the market. Today it’s easy to make a record and get it out on the market but difficult to make everyone to find your music/record amongst all others. It’s kind of “the other way round” these days.
Hardrock Haven: How do you think the recent line-up changes influenced the band’s sound and the direction it follows now music-wise?
Mats Karlsson: I think Anders’ voice is more “direct” and really grabs you. Apart from that we’re just doing what feels right and what we like, hopefully others will like it too. We’re having fun.
Hardrock Haven: There’s no bassist or keyboardist in the band – who performed these instrumental parts on the new 220 Volt album? Do you plan some personal additions to the line-up in the future, or will the band remain only a guitar-fueled quartet?
Mats Karlsson: Bass is played by Johan Niemann (Evergrey, -ex Therion) and Lars Ericsson (who’s also in The Summit with Mats Karlsson), both are great bassplayers, and Johan has played with us live to help us out with a festival last year. Keyboards are partly played/programmed by me and we also have my brother Ulf playing Hammond and various keyboards on a few tracks. We have no plans of getting a new bass player at the moment, we have a really good chemistry in the band as it is right now. Maybe later on …
Hardrock Haven: The new album’s titled Walkin’ In Starlight – is there any particular idea behind this title, or is it just named after the first song?
Mats Karlsson: It’s about a fictitious character, a bit of a fantasy theme. But it’s about someone/something that you can turn to when you’re down, when hope or trust is lost, and this character walks among the stars and shares the starlight and guides the way. We’re hoping our music can spread some light and make a difference in someone’s life too.
Thomas Drevin: We decided to use one of Göran Strand’s photos as cover and I think that the title Walking in Starlight came up when we were looking at the photographs.
Hardrock Haven: Perhaps the most surprising feature of 220 Volt’s new album is its diversity genre-wise. At times, it’s contemporary hard rock, at times ‘80s-infused melodic hard rock and also, some Americana echoes. What’s inspired this kind of versatility?
Thomas Drevin: We just tried to write the best songs we could. We’ve never sat down and decided what kind of album we’re gonna make, We did talk a lot about having an open mind though, that we actually can make any kind of album, cause no one knows what to expect anyway. We went through lots of ideas and worked on the one’s that we all liked.
Hardrock Haven: Only a few tracks, such as “Stranded” or “The Waiting,” are close to the band’s early melodic hard rock style. Was it deliberate decision so as not to sound “dated”? Do you try to shun being somewhat ‘labeled’ as an ‘80s hair band?
Thomas Drevin: No, as said, we just wanted to write the best songs we could. So this is what came out this time. We can’t ignore the fact that we did five albums in the ‘80s that did get some attention, and then a few more after that, but we’re certainly not looking back when writing, it’s all here and now.
Hardrock Haven: “Take A Good Look” and “One Good Reason” gravitate more towards blues. The genre of blues being historically a foundation of rock music, how important it remains to the rock musicians today? Do you think it kinds of resurfaces in the 21st century recordings?
Thomas Drevin: Everything goes in circles. Nowadays there are a lot of bands with youngsters that sound like the bands that their parents probably listened to in the late sixties, early seventies. In a decade we probably hear the eighties coming back. The older ones have heard it before but for the young ones it’s something new. But all music pop, rock, metal has its roots in the old school of blues/jazz, one way or another. When it comes down to 220V we’ve all had a special relation to Deep Purple’s music so if there’s a touch of blues in our music it’s not so strange.
Hardrock Haven: Who came up with the idea of working with the string quartet and do you think it was a valuable experience?
Thomas Drevin: Mats came up with the idea. The rest of us gave it a quick thought and said, yeah why not, let’s give it a try. It certainly adds to the feel and makes it bigger, I also think Mats’ brother Ulf wrote a very good string arrangement. The song has a very loose arrangement apart from the string parts, almost a bit prog-rock and we just wanted it to be a little different.
Hardrock Haven: Do you think the band will go for similarly versatile material in the future, or maybe there’s another direction you’d follow sound-wise?
Mats Karlsson: I think we’re going to do what feels best in every given situation, but I do think we’ve found a very easy way to write, we only go for the parts that we all like, and that usually makes it kind of easy. We did use a lot of parts that came from jamming, which is something we didn’t do so much before. We developed the best parts into finished tracks. Broken Promises being a very good example of that, I can see us do more of that.
Thomas Drevin: the strength of the band is that everyone is allowed to contribute in the songwriting. That’s probably why we are, as you said earlier “diverse genre-wise”
Hardrock Haven: On your Facebook profile, you’ve stated the album kind of comes full circle with the last track having a “link” with the first one. Could you please explain this connection?
Mats Karlsson: The last track “Guiding Light” is about losing someone, and how to carry on after something like that. A glowing memory can be a very strong thing, it can actually help, and be a guiding light to a better place. So lyrically, it sort of ties in with “Walking In Starlight” which open with the words, “The light guides our way” and then the album ends with sort of the same theme. It’s set up to make you immediately want to put the record back on (laughs).
Hardrock Haven: Who’s designed the album cover and does it express anything in particular?
Thomas Drevin: Yeah, it’s home. It’s a real photo of Aurora over Indalsälven, a river in Jamtland, the county in Sweden where we all lived when 220 V started. It’s taken by our friend and great astronomy photographer Göran Strand, so he did some work on it as per our instructions. He’s taken some amazing photos and his pics have been picked as Image Of The Day on NASA’S website a couple of times, very cool. We thought it was perfect for our title, have a look here at some more of his work. (www.astrofotografen.se)
Hardrock Haven: Who’s produced the album and what influence they exerted over its sound?
Mats Karlsson: We did the production ourselves, the songs sort of decided the sound.
Hardrock Haven: For the new album, you renewed your collaboration with Max Norman, who produced your Eye To Eye album back in 1988 and who now did the mix of a few tracks. Why have you decided to work with Max again?
Mats Karlsson: We just had a feeling that he could do good things with some of these songs. We also heard some stuff he had done recently that sounded really good, so we just asked him.
Hardrock Haven: What kind of promotion do you plan for the album? Some music videos, or maybe special bonus packages to those who are going to pre-order it?
Mats Karlsson: Yes, we’re working on some video content, the rest is up to the record company really.
Hardrock Haven: The band’s 1988 album Eye To Eye was the best selling one. Do you think it was also the best one in terms of music, lyrics or production?
Mats Karlsson: I think the time was right when it came out, it also had to do with Max Norman producing, it gave it some extra attention since he had done a lot of big records then. I think we did some good songs before and after that, but it was the best production and the most well prepared album that we had done at that point.
Hardrock Haven: Towards the end of the interview, being a Pole I have to ask about the 1985 band performance in front of 80.000 people in Warsaw, Poland. What were the circumstances of this performance? How was the audience’s reaction?
Mats Karlsson: We were invited to play a festival in Warsaw together with O.M.D and Treat among others. It was a “goodbye to summer” sort of theme. Our album “Mind Over Muscle” had been released there and our videos had been on TV, so we were recognized to a certain degree. They were inexperienced in doing live-TV sound, so we did eight songs playback. As far as it being a surreal experience, I remember the crowd being great. They were not allowed on the grass though, so they were kind of far away from the stage on that big stadium, adding to the surreal feeling (laughs).
Hardrock Haven: What are the band’s current plans? What do you think the future holds in store for 220 Volt?
Mats Karlsson: We’re doing some press at the moment and we’re also preparing some video material. It’s still about a month and a half until the album’s out, so I think we’ll be following that through, and have our booking agent start working on dates so we can get out and play live.
Visit the band online: https://www.facebook.com/220VoltOfficial
