With this madness that is happening in the World at the moment, due to Covid-19, and concerts being postponed or cancelled, new albums are being released for the happiness of the fans. “Music is very important, and I don’t know what my life would be like if I wouldn’t have music to listen to. So, I relate to how important it is to have music in your life”. These are the words of Nils Molin, vocalist of Dynazty, that bring some joy for the fans and music lovers out there and never gives up faith, hope, love and strength. We’ve talked about the new album, the contribution of the band members (Love Magnusson – guitars, George Egg – drums, Mikael Lavér – guitars and Jonathan Olsson – bass), the mystery behind the keyboards on “Heartless Madness), the future of touring, the band and many more.
M.I. - Thanks for making this interview happen. How are you?
I’m pretty good. How are you?
M.I. - I’m exhausted, because I’m a Care Assistant in a hospital, here in Portugal.
Oh! I see, I see! Well, then I can imagine that you’re in a pretty stressful situation everyday and I’m glad I can help.
M.I. - Thanks. Now that we’ve warmed up, let’s begin, shall we?
Sure.
M.I. - “The Dark Delight” was released on the 3rd April, this year, through AFM Records. Where did you get the inspiration for the lyrics and music? Was it a difficult album to produce?
Well, it was a difficult album to produce. Yes and no. I think that all albums are difficult to produce, in the sense that it’s a lot of work to write, to produce and to record an album. But it’s hard work that you want to do too, that you want the hours, that you put down and you want to do them. In terms of finding inspiration, that doesn’t seem to be a problem for us. And when we started writing this album, basically a year ago we had lots of inspiration. So, writing the album was just fun and very inspiring. When it comes to writing music, we find inspiration simply from the joy of writing new music and creating new music. And that is something that doesn’t seems to go away. And it’s something we don’t struggle with. And even though it was not that late, or it was not long ago, we finished writing the previous album, we still were inspired and charged like never. We wrote more songs than we have ever done before for an album. In terms of lyrics, I just do the same thing that I basically have done for the last couple of albums or the last years and that is that I’m inspired by whatever is happening around me or stuff that catches my attention and something, some theme that will drip the song and coexist in a good way with the song.
M.I. - Jacob Hansen (Flotsam & Jetsam, Volbeat, U.D.O. Amaranthe, Destruction), helped mixing this album, while you produced it yourselves. I know you’ve already worked with him in Amaranthe. Did he understand your point of view and what you wanted?
Yes, he did! I don’t know if he would agree with it, but I would describe him as the modern-day Bob Rock, as a producer. That’s the way I see it in many ways like this huge natural sound that he creates so well in his studio and with his mixing, stuff like that. And that is the kind of sound that we were seeking for this album. I knew that it would be fantastic with him. I was not disappointed, and I was not wrong (laughs). So, we were very happy with the result and working with Jacob is fantastic. He always produces fantastic results. So, he’s just an incredible record producer and mixer, and engineer and everything.
M.I. - "The Dark Delight" continues with the same passion, the same power and the same attitude where "Firesign", your last opus, left off. Can we say that this album is a next chapter for your band? In what way?
Yeah, it’s the next chapter! I think that, in many ways, this album is like a combination of our previous two albums and then adding more influences and more layers that we have not done before. I think we sort of optimized our sound with this one. We sort of really settled into what kind of music we wanted to do and what kind of music that we want to present. For sure it’s the next chapter for the band. And I don’t think that we have ever made an album that is this strong and has this overall quality in every song of twelve tracks on the album. I think all of them are fantastic and they are very dynamic and diverse. I don’t think we’ve accomplished to this extent before. It’s the next step to the next chapter.
M.I. - I think that, due to this madness we are living, people listen to more music and seek for novelties. Nowadays, it’s music that keeps us sane and this is a great album to help us with. One of the best albums of this decade.
Well, that’s great to hear. I agree also. Music is very important, and I don’t know what my life would be like if I wouldn’t have music to listen to. So, I relate to how important it is to have music in your life.
M.I. - All the songs here are pure melodic metal bliss at their highest and the guitars work very well together with your voice and it has an 80’s atmosphere. Do you agree? Do you like that specific period?
This band that has one foot in the past and one foot in the modern era. All the band members of Dynazty liste to Rock music, from all the decades, all the way from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 2000’s, 2010’s. We are one of those bands that really understand what made some of the older bands so great in the past. This is something that we’ll always carry with us in our music, even though we’re also quite contemporary and try to keep our sound updated to the times but we always pay tributes to the past in our music, because we love that music a lot. Personally, I especially listen to Hard Rock and Heavy Metal from the 70’s and early 80’s, it’s just some of my favourite stuff of all time, so they will always come through when writing music.
M.I. - Name a few bands you like, please.
Sure. There are lot of bands from the 70’s, some are my favourites of all time: Deep Purple, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Kansas, Whitesnake, Dio. And there are bands from the 80’s that I love: Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, these kind of classic Heavy Metal bands. And there are lots of other bands from the past decades or other eras that are some of my favourite bands. For example, I’ve been a huge fan of Dream Theater for a long time. I know all their albums backwards, basically. Yeah! The list can go on.
M.I. - More mature, more “technical", more ballsy and heavier than ever, this album is what I call “top class melodic metal stuff”. What was more difficult for you to write? The melody or the lyrics?
They’re both challenging. I guess what defines the song, at the end of the day, is how strong the melodies are together with the arrangements and all that. So, first and foremost, I try to create the melodies, that will carry the song. Usually, I focus on the lyrics. Sometimes it’s super easy, sometimes it needs some more time to work on to get it properly and to get all the phrases in the way that I want them and stuff like that. So, they’re both challenging, and both are important to me. So, I put in a lot of effort. It will always be a challenge but it’s a challenge that I enjoy.
M.I. - You’ve said and I quote: “We pulled out all the stops, pulled no punches and held nothing back on this one, The Dark Delight is the complete vision of what this band has always wanted to be.” Where do you vision Dynazty to be, with this album, in the present and future?
Those words are true with this album. We’ve never put this much effort into the recording of the album, to the production of the album, to the song writing, and the result is something that we’ve always wanted to see. There’s a sense of pride on this album that I have not felt before. So, that’s why we say those things in the press release and it’s true. I think that this is where we are right now. This is exactly where we want to be. Right now, we’re still in the process of releasing the album, so it’s a little early to say what the next step will be. But I’m pretty sure that we’ll continue to do what we have done for the last couple of years, which is just to continue to write as good music as we possible can and to record and make as good albums as we possible can. And go out on tour and be the best possible live band that we could ever be. I mean, the motto of the band is basically to always become the better version of ourselves with each release. So, that’s where I envision that this band will be in the future as well. That we always stay true to our motto, always be the better version of ourselves.
M.I. - Let’s talk about the cover. Gustavo Sazes worked with you. How did you find him? Which of his works is your favourite?
I’ve seen a lot of his covers in the past, because he’s done so many for Metal bands. I was looking at a page and I found his page. And I was looking through it and this was when I was in Amaranthe. But I didn’t know that he had done all the Amaranthe’s covers (laughs). I was looking at him for doing the album cover of the “Firesign” album. I discovered him and I contacted him and then I saw his Facebook page, that he was holding up a gold record, an Amaranthe gold record. So, that’s when I put one and two together and I realized: “Ah! Well of course he’s the one who’s been doing the Amaranthe’s covers!” so, I have seen his covers floating around throughout the years. And it wasn’t until I came across one of his covers and I went to his page and finally to his Facebook page that I realized who he was and making all this album covers for Amaranthe as well. I realized who the person was. So, I contacted him for the “Firesign” album, and we started working there. Then we asked him if he would be interested in doing it again for this album. And he was! We’re happy about that.
M.I. - What was your idea for this cover and did Gustavo had the same vision? In what way?
I decided to not say too much to Gustavo (laughs) about the album cover. So, I basically gave him the title and explained what the title was about, sent him some of the lyrics from some of the songs and sent him a few demos… but nothing more. I just said: “Well, you know, the title will be ‘The Dark Delight’ so, maybe the album cover should be kind of dark (laughs)”. I said something like that. I don’t have the same kind of expertise in this field as he does. So, I just tried to give him what the album was about and stay out of the way and he came up with the cover and he sent it to me. And at first glance, I didn’t know what to expect, but still when I saw it, I felt like: “Ok! This is exactly what...” I didn’t know that I wanted it to look like this, but this is what I wanted it to look like. So, I’m very happy with the result.
M.I. - You’ve worked with Tage Rönnqvist on previous videos. How was it working together again in this album?
Very, very good. We shot a video with him for “The Human Paradox”, in 2016, and we were very, very happy with the result, first and foremost with that video. We were also very happy, very happy working with them and how the shooting went and everything like that. So, it was a pure joy to work with them again. We went to Helsinki, in Finland, and shot the video with them. We had a lot of fun together and we have lots of common interests and it’s very easy to hang out and to work together. I look forward to working with them again.
M.I. - “Presence of Mind” was released on the 30th January and it is the first single and the solo from Love is amazing. Why have you chosen this song?
It just felt like the natural first single to release. It was difficult choosing singles for this album (laughs). Very difficult. But the one thing that felt pretty certain, was that we would release “Presence Of Mind” as the first one. This is just a big anthemic kind of song. It just felt like the perfect song to introduce people to the album. And a great song to do a video for. It was just the natural choice.
M.I. - The next follow-up was “Heartless Madness”, released on the 28th February. On the intro, we can listen to a piano. Who plays it? And who had the idea to make the video in a kitchen?
That piano we did it for the demo, you know, programming it through the computer, which is what we do with lot of the arrangements. But the keyboards, I guess you can say that it’s both Love and Mike, who do the keyboards for the album. It’s a digital piano and, nowadays, all the bands have the benefit of the digital age to create a lot of arrangements. So, it’s very easy to do that when you’re writing a demo and all the stuff. When it comes to recording the video in the kitchen, I guess that was Tage Rönnqvist and the people there. It was their idea to shot in their studio. So, they have this studio with a big green, that we shot in front and have in the middle of their studio. I guess that thing is right in the middle of their kitchen as well (laughs). So, of course you don’t see that in the video, but you see it in the behind the scenes pictures.
M.I. - “Waterfall” (13th March) has an 80’s footage. Why did you choose it? And what’s the meaning?
(laughs). Well, we just wanted to create a simple video with this one and we would have these two-story lines, that would converge and meet in the end, which is the band being out and then coming back to this hotel room. Finally, at the end of the video, they find me sitting there in the shower. We used this old school footage to differentiate the two-story lines, so there would be like a bit of a surprise that they would meet towards at the end of the video. The meaning of the video, well… I wouldn’t want to give too much way, but it correlates with the lyrics. I leave that to anybody’s imagination what the video is about.
M.I. - Let’s talk about some tracks. “The Black” is classic old-school melodic hard rock in its construction, tone and delivery, particularly in the verses. Did bands such as Guns N’ Roses, Skid Row and more have an influence on this song? In what way?
The main influence of “The Black” was the song that we did on the “Firesign” album, called “The Grey”, which is the main influence and we wanted to make a sequel song to that one. So, there was this original idea that was very reminiscent of “The Grey”. So, we decided to build upon it further and it became this sequel track to “The Grey”, called “The Black” and the lyrics is also a sequel to that song. In other influences, I don’t know. We don’t really think about that much. It’s just the way we write. There was no influence besides making a song that had the same kind of themes, both musically and lyrically as “The Grey”.
M.I. - “Paradise Of The Architect” is pure genius and uses modern technology with synths. And the drumming is well constructed. Did you already have the idea of using these instruments on your previous works?
We used plenty, for some of the previous albums. For example, I think that “Paradise Of The Architect” is like a spiritual successor to some of our earlier songs, like” Starlight” and “The Human Paradox”, and “Keys To Paradise”, those kinds of songs. And they also had that kind of keyboards, maybe we pushed them a little further in the mix. So, you hear them a little bit more on the “Paradise Of The Architect”. But it’s been there on earlier albums as well.
M.I. - Of all your albums, what was the hardest and easiest to make?
None of them are easy. I think that was different. Sometimes the writing process is easy, sometimes the recording process is easy. I don’t think that we ever had an album where both the writing process and the recording process has been easy. I guess the closest would probably be the “Titanic Mass” album. Overall, it went smoothly. And the hardest ones, were the earlier albums, the first ones. They were always difficult for lots of various reasons. I guess one of them was that the band really didn’t know exactly what the band wanted to be and then there was people outside the band or in the organization of the band, that wanted the band to be something that maybe the band did not want to be, stuff like that. We did not have this much of control, we did not have this much power, that would give us: “You should work with this people as producers”, things like that. I think that they were the ones that we were struggling the most with.
M.I. - And videos? Which of them did you enjoy the most to shoot?
I think all the videos for this album were very smooth, very easy and we had lots of fun shooting them.
M.I. - People think that, with your work with Amaranthe, Dynazty will break up and you won’t have time for the band. What do you think about these statements and what can you tell people to calm them down?
(laughs). Well, am I proving them wrong? Since I joined Amaranthe, I released two Dynazty albums. I spent more hours, I worked harder on Dynazty during this year’s that I’ve been with Amaranthe, than I did before. No. Absolutely not. We will continue with Dynazty, probably even more than we have done before. Sure. I have my tour commitments, stuff like that and my work with Amaranthe, but there’s plenty of time. I managed to do it so far, I see no reason why I would not be able to do it in the future.
M.I. - The tour “Symphonic Power Alliance” with Serenity, Victorious, Ad Infinitum and you was postponed. Who had the idea for this tour and bands? Which countries will you visit, after this madness ends?
That’s a good question. We had to cancel that tour, we had to cancel our tour commitments for May, as well. So, both April and May are cancelled. If the situation is better, we will tour in the Fall. Hopefully, we can make up for everything that was cancelled now, postponed. So, hopefully we can reach everything that we planned to reach before this happened. Hopefully we can do this year and then continue next year, as well. Hopefully as many as possible, in Europe, to begin with. It’s all a matter of everything is sort of open in the air, now, because nobody knows what the situation will be like in a couple of months. But let us say that the plan is to go everywhere, at least to start with Europe and try to reach all the way from here, in the north, Scandinavia, go down to the south of Europe.
M.I. - Last year, you’ve visited Pindelo dos Milagres, here in Portugal. What do you recall of this experience? Did you like the country and intend to come back?
Yeah!!! We’ve been to Portugal one time before. I think we were there in 2016. This one was a festival. Overall, a very fun experience, a very fun show. We got to see a little bit of the country, which we didn’t do the first time around. We would love to come back, for sure.
M.I. - Thanks so much for having time for this. Any final words for Portugal and the Portuguese fans?
Thanks so much for the support. Be sure to listen to the new album, that came out on Friday. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we enjoy it. See you in Portugal as soon as possible. Stay safe there and wash your hands!
For Portuguese version, click here
Questions by Raquel Miranda
