Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weekly

Awhile back I reviewed HAGEN'S (and that's pronounced Hay-ghen) debut album Corridors of Time, describing it as a fantastic blend of DEEP PURPLE styled hard rock and mixed with folk music, but still coming across as fresh and not a throwback band. I needed to know what the hell was behind this, so an interview was necessary. Hans Rosén, bassist and co-writer of the music, and Michael Ohlsson, vocalist and lyricist, called me up a couple months back (yeah, I'm behind) to get me a little bit more involved in HAGEN'S world. Turned out to be pretty good, and interesting as Hans wanted to stick to just the facts and Michael wanted to have some fun with things. I really didn't know anything about the band or its members beside what I heard on the CD, so an introductory question was necessary...

Who are you people? Why are you on the phone?

Hans Rosén: We are Swedish guys. In Sweden, there are a lot of traditions living. Folk music is very alive. Me and Michael here have been playing together for many years. Michael Ohlsson: Ten, actually. HR: in hard rock bands. My brother Anders is a folk musician, and one day outside his house we just got inspired and thought why not try to put these styles together? Me from hard rock, him from the folk music scene. MO: I've been singing and playing since I was seven, that's the first time I was on stage, as a drummer actually. I've been playing since. I'm kind of a collector when it comes to music. I'm interested in all kinds of musical styles, as long as it's good. I've tried to sing and play many styles over the years. I thought now it's time to do some folk music. I tried it myself in a band earlier, but then I got this tape from Hans and Anders and it was all instrumental and they asked me to try to write some lyrics and make some melodies to this stuff. At first I thought how the hell am I going to make this work? After a couple of songs both Anders and Hans thought it was very good. So I got involve and was on board the ship HAGEN. HR: The reason for calling Michael, I know Michael is the best! MO: And I always answer the phone.

Who else had you heard going into this style before?

HR: In Sweden there are some bands mixing the styles, called HEDNINGARNA and GARMARNA, but I haven't listened too much to them. They're not for me. We decided to try to do something to meld the styles together. The other bands in Sweden, I think, you can hear a folk side standing in one corner of the room, and in the next corner, you have the hard rock band. It's never put together in a nice way. That was our first decision. It would be put together in a new kind of way. MO: And most are instrumental. They have never added this rock style and melodies and vocals to it. HR: And never English vocals. Most often, they are guys from the musical universities who have learned to do this stuff, and it's not real actually.

Have you heard bands like SKYCLAD or OTYG?

HR: I heard of SKYCLAD after reading some reviews of HAGEN. I'd never heard them before. MO: Me neither, and I haven't heard them yet! When I was a teenager, I listened to bands like JETHRO TULL and they kind of mixed folk music to rock and roll. They did it very well. HR: Not to forget our keyboard player's old band KAIPA, that band inspired me a lot when I was a teenager. They mix folk music and rock music in a very good way I think.

I got their new album a few months ago.

HR: You should listen to their earlier albums, from the mid 70s.

Why is it to you that there's value in mixing this heavy metal and hard rock with the folk music in the first place?

MO: It's our roots. It doesn't matter if we like it or not, we are brought up on Swedish folklore. I really like some stuff, even as a kid. There were some groups in the late 60s trying to mix Swedish folk and electric guitars. I really like that. It has to do with the melancholy way of living. We are melancholic here in Sweden, and I think you can hear that in the folklore. That's part of me as a human being. HR: I think it's in our genes. Mo: It's in my pants! HR: Well, OK. It's a very strong tradition living here, and I guess all Swedish people hear this tradition. MO: So why not update it a little bit? HR: It's beautiful music. My grandmother sang it to me when I was a little baby, and I heard it all my life. When I became a hard rock musician, it was obvious in some way. MO: It always reminds you of traditions and Swedish nature, the wilderness and the forests and the falls. I can hear it in the music, the nature. Most Swedes I guess can do that. HR: The other bands combining it in are very popular in Sweden MO: But we are not. <laughs>

I was surprised that you started off the CD with a slower song. That's something not everyone else in the world does.

HR: We had a long discussion with our label about this. We wanted to start the album with some kind of statement showing what we're doing. The record company wanted us to do a prelude, that's the word he used. After a while we agreed, and now we think it's great. It's different to start off with a song like that.

You guys seem to be older than the usual bands out there trying to make a name for them selves. You just don't see people with grey hair being an a band these days.

HR: I play regularly with a folk fiddler in Sweden. He's eighty-one years old, and he's been a musical companion for years. Why not? This pop scene that you can see on MTV is not our scene. MO: The grey hair is normal! It shows you're a little bit older and a little bit more experienced, perhaps. If you can put that into the music, I think that's a good thing. HR: Some people are slowing down as they are growing old, and they are satisfied with their lives and they don't dare to do anything extra. MO: Especially if they have been successful as a boy band, then they can settle down and be grey haired. But I think you would be able to dare when you are experienced. To me, that's normal. HR: Maybe the most serious guys are grey-haired <laughs>

I don't care. The music's good, so I don't care what you guys look like. Problem is, the people I'm writing for, most of them are younger than I am, some are teenagers themselves

MO: How old are you?

I'm twenty-seven. I'm just worried what someone might think if they look at the website or something and see guys old enough to be their dad.

HR: Half the band is younger than you! Well not really half.

Do you have any idea who the audience will be for your music ahead of time?

HR: When I and my brother had started this thing, the idea was to put hard rock into it. The best way was to call younger guys. MO: So they called me. HR: <laughs> Yeah. Michael's kind of younger than me. But the guitarist and drummer are much younger, and the way to do it is like the way Miles Davies did it. Call younger musicians and get inspired. That's the way I think. MO: I don't think age has anything to do with it. You can be a teenager yet an old man in your mind. HR: I have friends who are ten to fifteen years younger but they look old. The folk fiddler Wille Toors, is eighty one years old but he's about twenty years old in mental age. MO: But I understand your point of view. I'm forty years old but still get suggestions from girls in their twenties. I don't think it's a problem, really <laughs>

What is the basic way that a HAGEN song is constructed?

MO: As I told you, Hans and Anders called me and gave me a cassette of music they wanted me to put vocals, lyrics and melodies with. That's just this album. The next album won't be created that way. HR: When we started HAGEN, it was just me and my brother, and we just made some structures on the four track. Then the rest of the band came in. Now we are a complete band. The process now will be that all are involved from the beginning. I think that will be much better.

The songs themselves, as far as the lyrical message, what are you trying to get across?

MO: That's a tricky one. I want to write things that are genuine and things I have experienced in different ways. I'm not that fond of writing fables or things like that, just making stuff up. I write better when I write from a point of view where I'm involved. To me, that's the only way. It's very hard for me to write about something I don't know anything about, just imagining things. HR: Without feelings. MO: Experiences and some stuff maybe a little bit political in some ways. I've written for bands that way, other CD's that are quite political. If I see something that I don't like, I feel I've got to write about this. HR: That's how artist work, I think. MO: Not all of them. HR: <laughs> To show people what's it all about. MO: It has to stand for something. That's important to me, to make a stand for things. I like or don't like.

One of the more interesting lyrics was for the song Afraid. What inspired those lyrics?

MO: I've actually worked a lot with teenagers. Teenagers in Sweden today are, sad to say, very suicidal. Often depressed. These kids I'm writing about in the lyrics, they excist, but of course they're not called Jenny and Kenny. I've met these youngsters, and it's very sad. I don't know if it's the same problem in the States, but in Sweden there are many teenagers committing suicide.

Is that a recent problem?

MO: It's been a pattern from the early 90s I think. It's very hard to get a job today as a young man or woman, and it's very hard for them to get through school. I'm a teacher as wellThey need an education and they need a job to get an identity, and they never get a chance. When they are fifteen or sixteen, they are getting this judgement that they're no good, they don't fit.

So what's the solution?

MO: Of course telling them they are good enough. Everybody knows something. Now that we're focusing on the theoretic side of everything. Not everybody can have a PhD. Somebody needs to clean and run the society and pay the PhDs! And you need people who can play and sing and play football! You can't build a society of people with PhDs. That's the wrong way to go. If you're creative and into art, that doesn't mean anything in Swedish schools. It doesn't mean anything if you're good in athletics or in art and I think that's a problem.

We're always told that in Europe, the arts are respected much more.

HR: The government really stands behind us for music. You can rehearse for free, and that's great. That's the reason for what you call the Swedish musical wonder. MO: But in school, nobody scratches your back if you are a good painter or a good singer. That doesn't count. HR: The only things that are important are math or language. And if you're not good at it, you can't go to higher education. It has to be more individual, you have to take care of the individual talents.

Moving on to the other song that I really have questions about as far as the lyrics would be the song Questions.

MO: It's the same old good and dance. It's good and evil, maybe from another point of view.

I like the line, "Satan or Jesus, is it really all the same?"

MO: That's the thing that I've been wondering about for many years. When you become a fanatic, does it matter if you say you are working for Satan or Jesus? Do you understand what I'm saying?

It's an interesting topic these days because we had that court that declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because it had 'under God' in it, and then there's scandals with the Catholic priests.

MO: Anything, when you get this mania or hysteria, it's always dangerous. No matter the subject.

When you hear about things like the Catholic priests here in America, how do you view it as an outsider?

HR: Well here in Sweden we are not Catholics. We see the Catholic Church as a conservative and closed kind of church. I really don't like the Catholic Church. I want progressive stuff. A church to be with the people, to be a part of their life.

One thing I've never understood about most churches. Are they supposed to be serving the congregation or enforcing the law from above? You can't do both at the same time, so which master do you serve?

MO: The church should serve the first master. The church and religion should be something that you can lean on. Get you through when you're having tough times. That's the idea of it, I think. HR: It should be natural. That's the word for it. Not punishing. A part of daily life. To me, religion is feeling happy to be a part of this wonderful world. When I'm fishing, for example, then I'm really religious. I feel I'm a part of this fantastic, wonderful world! That's how the church should be. MO: I think it's getting a little bit tricky when your call is religion. That's when it's getting a little bit dangerous. When you speak about faith, it should give you strength. It's getting political in a way. They're using it in politics all over the world, they always have been. HR: Organizations are always dangerous. MO: You see the problems in Great Britain, with the Protestants and Catholics. What is it all about? To me, it's a political problem. The poor Catholics and the rich Protestants. HR: I'm personally happy to be buried on this Earth one day. There's going to be growth from me!

What are your favourite songs on the album?

MO: June is my favourite. I had just broke up from a long time relationship with a nice girl I'd been together with for almost eight years. By the time I wrote the lyrics, I was in my family's summerhouse up north in Sweden. We used to stay there on summer vacations, me and my girlfriend. So I woke up one morning and felt the loss and I really missed her. So I wrote down just exactly what I felt that morning. It's very close to my heart, that song. HR: I can't choose one song from the album. The process of making it all, all songs have a different meaning in a way, and I love the album. Of course, when Sundown is in the speakers, it rocks! It makes me move my body parts! MO: You get erected? <everyone laughs> HR: That's the sexiest song, I think. I love sexy music. Rock music has to be sexy. You have to be erected. <laughs> I think The Northwinds Blow is a nice song. It's a folk song, folk melody. I think that's great. And June too. MO: Northwinds Blow is connected in a way, I wrote it for my ex-girlfriend.

If you could tell me about the cover art of the album.

MO: I think it's great! To me, it was very strange that an American artist from San Francisco captured the Swedish landscape. HR: She got our music to listen too MO: And that's all. It's very Swedish, the whole concept. Swedish folklore and that part of the tradition is sometimes quite similar to Indian traditions. We have our trolls and our spirits everywhere up in the woods! <laughs> HR: I don't think we're so far from the Indians. MO: There's an ocean to cross. HR: The people in the north of the world, all of those people are quite near to Indian culture. We have Indians in Sweden called Laplanders. Some people say that they are in some way related to the American Indians. It's hard to prove but I can believe it because they look alike.

On the website, you've got the album available for listening [on streaming audio]. A lot of bands and record labels are afraid of that.

HR: I'm the Webmaster, and I've been talking to our record label about this. You have to be able to listen to our stuff. MO: It's quite an investment these days to buy a CD. You have to have the opportunity to listen to it before buying it. HR: No one will buy a record without having a chance to listen to it before. There are a lot of webshops all over the Internet, you can read the text files about all the albums, but who fucking cares? I wouldn't buy a record without listening to it. Especially by a new band like us. That's why. This is a service to people and the quality of the sound is quite low quality, but it's just so all people can listen to it, from a slow modem connection to whatever you have. I don't know if you've watched our website, but we have songs from Michael's solo album that we were involved in. MO: Involved in? I hope I'm involved in my own solo album! <laughs> Have you remixed it or what? <laughs> HR: Shut up. Alright. It's a solo album by Michael but it was recorded in my studio and I played the bass and some slide guitar. It's available for free download and there's also another album that Michael and I have been doing. MO: That we recorded ten years ago, NEW CLEAR DAZE.

This album was released last year on Angular Records. I don't know if this is representative of their total promotional efforts, but I hadn't heard of your band until you contacted me. How has your experience been with Angular?

MO: That's a hard one, we still have to be diplomatic. It's a small company, I think it's doing what it can. But of course it would have been nice if they could have promoted us a little bit better. A month ago we got a license deal in Russia. That's very important. The company in Russia is larger, and covers the former Soviet Union. It looks like they are doing a great job. Through that promotion, we will get out in the world. HR: I've talked to Stefan [Kost] at Angular Records about the US market. We've talked about the possibilities of getting it to the US. It's not so good at the moment, the possibilities of getting licensed.

Do you have any future commitments to Angular?

HR: No. MO: For our next album, there will be less folk music than on this album. It will be English translations of the Russian poet Vladimir Vysotsky. He was a dissident in the old Soviet Union. A half a million people came to his funeral. [Before you think that hyperbole, I did some research and some news reports say that number was over one million. -ed] He was huge. There will be more vocals and less folk, but we won't forget who we are, but it will sound different from this album.

(and then my tape recorder started futzing again, but luckily all I missed here was the "five album thing" where the biggest revelation is that Michael has seventy frickin Frank Zappa albums and of course the final remarks. Do you need em? Go to the website and check out the songs, damn it. How's that for my final words?) Discography: With Hagen Corridors of Time (2001 Angular, re-released 2002 CD-Maximum) With New Clear Daze Selling Diamonds on the Edge of Time (1993 MN) Contact: Hans Rosén Brynäsgränd 16 802 84 Gävle SWEDEN hrn@bredband.net www.hagen.nu www.angular-records.com www.cd-maximum.ru