PAIN's recent album "You Only Live Twice" charted in Germany and Sweden, scoring the Top 40 in both countries. We were catching Peter Tägtgren on the longest day of the year.<br>...and in the end it's all about friends, family and taking it easy. Well, not really. After all, it doesn't have to be so serious:InterviewPeter, how are you doing?

Well, I'm good. Relaxing!

... honestly, on a day where you are facing about five hours of interviews. But there's a bank holiday coming up in Sweden, isn't it Midsommar?

Yeah, this weekend. But I will be at Graspop, so that's about it.

Is Midsommar a big thing where you are living?

The whole Sweden. It's like New Year – but in the summer. it's about tradition and stuff.

Do you really have to put up a tree, or something like that?

Yeah, some stupid tree. But that's not the biggest thing. It's about eating and to be together with friends and stuff like that. Having a nice time.

So it's more a family thing?

Yeah. And friends. But it's ok. I've done it a couple of million times.

Your album is out for about two weeks now. So far the reactions are great, especially here in Germany.

Yeah, Germany was very great, it was surprisingly good. Really - I didn't expect that. I thought maybe, if we are lucky, we might get Top 60. But we got Top 40!

You didn't even play in Germany by now!

No, not yet. The first concert in Germany will be on tour on October 5. I mean, it's weird: It seems like no festival promoter in Germany really gave a shit about PAIN – but I guess the fans did. We will definitely see the fans in October, I think we will do 5 or 6 gigs in Germany.

Do you alreadys have reactions how the new songs work live?

Yeah, by the end of May we did a Russian tour, so they got to see it first, and then we did a few festivals. We did Novarock in Austria, and we did a Swedish festival and a smaller one in Finland. But the reaction is really good. People know the songs already, so that's great.

Which songs did you play live?

We played "Let Me Out", "Dirty Woman", "The Great Pretender" and "You Only Live Twice".

I really like the video to "The Great Pretender", it's really funny.

Yeah, it's funny. I mean: It doesn't have to be so serious.

So who came up with the idea?

Actually it was Ewo, our manager, who came up with the story for this one.

I really like about your record that you put some really oldschool sounding songs on it, for example "Fear the Demons" could be from one of the really old record of yours or "Let Me Out" – I like it because it sounds so like 1996!

Yeah, it's a little more like that. I don't know, I just fell like going more guitar-based this time. I don't know why, I just started writing the PAIN songs with the guitar. And then I guess it just became that way. I also wanted to do some fast songs because I never had any really fast songs on Pain albums.

"Fear The Demons" could be on an Hypocrisy record, too, like the slow song in between?

Maybe that's true, I guess. Since I write most of the stuff in Hypocrisy as well there's always gonna be roads crossing each other between Pain and Hypocrisy. It's really hard to be true schizophrenic and not even touch each others realm.

So are you already writing new stuff for Hypocrisy?

I haven't started writing ANYTHING yet. I was really overworked after this album and I just couldn't really feel like doing anything after that. The air went out.

Sounds like you put some efford into this PAIN record.

Oh yeah, that's for sure!

I remember that your drummer David Wallin once told me that he's almost envying the pace you are writing and recording songs. "Ah, Peter. He's writing a song over night, and then he's doing another song and then he's going record it" – so this is not your working schedule anymore?

Well, for this album it was like that. But I feel a kind of full now, so I just wanna wait until I get hungry again. Now we wanna go out and kick ass. And also with this tour: It has been so much planning and trying to get things together. We want to bring a lot of stuff for the stage and show. And it's a lot of work trying to fit the budget. As soon as the album was done it was time to think about the tour and to get everything ready. It's a long time before the tour, but still. And suddenly it's October and then you're fucked if you didn't really do it properly. Yeah, it's been superhectic and now I can relax...

So you're 100% Pain at the moment?

Yeah, for sure. And will be for the next – I don't know – 12-15 month.

You have a pretty stable line-up now for the past 5-6 years?

Yeah, exactly. And I mean David has been playing drums since... I think the first gig he did was in 2003. So he's been in the band for a long time.

Did it change something for the recording process?

David recorded drums on the whole album. So that was cool. It's adding a more humanized feeling to it. He is a very good drummer and it's cool. He's still disappointed with his thing but I don't know what he might want to do better. He had the songs for a long time but I guess he just... well, since I did the drums for the demos he got too much into the drum things that I did and then he said that he wants to be there from the beginning of the songs next time so that he can go all the way and not being influenced by the way I did it.

Actually that's some kind of development for you and the band, because when you started PAIN it was pretty strictly your solo project.

Yeah. Time changes, you know. I think it's cool. I definitely wanted a little bit more humanized impression for this album. I don't know what's gonna happen with the next one.

What's the role of Johan and Mikael? (Bass player Johan Husgafvel and guitar player Michael Bohlin - laetti)

Well, you know, there's more than just making an album. All three of them are really busy when it comes to live stuff, and planning, and set lists and all kind of shit that I don't have to worry about. That's really cool.

So when I want to wish a song for the next tour I have to contact Johan or Mikael?

Or actually David, he's the "Setlist Hitler", as we call him.

And he is the one who is running the "pain moblog" about your concerts.

Yeah, he's good on that. I think for this tour we will actually have the fans vote for their favourite setlist.

This decision already paid off for Hypocrisy, didn't it?

Yeah. It really helps us a lot, it makes it much easier to see what people want.

I'll definitely vote.. See you in October!

Take it easy!