What?

Em, to the victory of the national Swedish football team at the european championchips.

To be honest, I´m not this quite interested in football. But thanks anyway. I think you should have talked to our guitar player Mattias Ljung instead because he really is a football.

And what about your singer Johan Liiva?

I don´t know really if he´s interested in football. I don´t think so to be honest.

How did it evolve with HEARSE? Now it´s your second album, but how did you come together after Johan left ARCH ENEMY?

I started the band back in 2000, I think. Because I had a lot of songs over. I was also in another band, but I´ve always been a drummer, and drummers never seem to be songwriters to other musicians. The other people in this band didn´t let me do any songs as a drummer, and I had like 15 songs ready and I really wanted to play them. I thought it was about time to start another band. I called Johan up. Me and Johan, we´ve been friends for 15 years now, still from our school times. And we´ve been playing together for at least 10 years before so it was about time that we go together again I guess. And then I had a friend at the school where I worked, who was a very good guitar player, so I asked him to join the band, too. That´s the main story of the band, I guess.

Do you all live in the same area?

Me and the guitar player live here in Stockholm, but Johan lives quite far from here, about seven hours with a car. So he flies up here sometimes to rehearse with us. But of course it would be much easier if he lives up here, too. But he decided to live down there because all his realtives live there in the south of Sweden. Sad but true.

That doesn´t sound so easy. What´s your songwriting process gonna look like? You told me that you´re writing songs, or is there a part where you put it together?

We usually do it like this: I use to do the ground of the song, with all the riffs and stuff, then I give it over to our guitar player Mattias, and he makes all the leads and the solos and stuff, and then we send the stuff to Johan and just tell him: "Here, it should be vocals on this parts of the song" and then he screams it all onto the tape down there and sends it back, so this is the way we make music right now.

So Johan´s writing all the lyrics as well?

Yeah. I think it´s a pretty cool way of doing music because you´ll never know how the song will sound in the end.

You´re only three guys, who´s playing bass? For example, when you play live?

On the record I play the bass. In a live situation we´ve got a session bass player here from Stockholm, too, so we rehearse with a full line up, with a bass player, and our guitar player and me on drums. So there will be no problems, really.

How can you afford this all? I mean, if Johan has to be flown into some time.

We earn a lot of money on our music (clearing his throat).

Good point.

No. Don´t believe me. We put pretty much money into it I guess because of course it costs a lot to fly Johan over to Stockholm. But it´s worth it in the end, we live for playing and this is the best thing you can do. I mean, I wouldn´t survive without playing. So it´s worth the money, I guess. Really. All hobbies cost money, I don´t see it as a problem, really. Of course I´m a student right now, so I don´t earn any money, but the little money I have I put into HEARSE anyway. I think it´s worth it in the end, because it makes me having a lot of fun and that´s what it´s really about. It´s costing money to have fun, and that´s ok with me.

And other people have fun while listening to HEARSE. What´s your favourite song on your own record?

"Crops of Waste" I guess, the third one. And then I really like "Ticket To Devastation". It´s an instrumental, it´s just one riff through the whole song, and it´s pretty heavy, so I think that turned out pretty cool. I did it in the studio about 10 minutes before I recorded it, so I think it turned out really cool. Do you have a favourite?

Yes of course, mine is "Turncoat".

Ok., people seem to like that, which is cool.

It really seems to be like some kind of an "evil twin" to a song Johan has done four years ago with his previous band.

Ok? What song then?

ARCH ENEMY did a song on the album "Burning Bridges" called "Silverwing".

Ok., yeah. It´s absolutely one of my favourite ARCH ENEMY songs. But I don´t really think that I had that one in mind when I did it. It´s just a coincidence. That´s a really great song, this "Silverwing", and "Burning Bridges" is my absolute favourite record from ARCH ENEMY, too. What a great record!

This record of yours seems a lot in the direction of what ARCH ENEMY has meant four years ago, and what they are not doing this time anymore. Your first record with HEARSE was more harsh and rather "rocky".

I guess so. The thing is I don´t really plan a record before I do it, I just make the music and then this is the way it turned out. I never think like "today I´m gonna do a song that sounds like this or that. I never think in terms like that, because I just make the music and this it what it turns out to be, really.

Did you play some live shows since "Dominian Reptilian" was released?

To be honest, we have never played live. But we´re gonna do our first shows in september in Belgium and the Netherlands. It is gonna be great, really. This seems a little bit strange, we seemed to be the only metal band in the world who has recorded two albums and never played live, so it is just strange.

I think it´s even strange that your first shows are in Holland and not in Sweden.

Definitely, that´s gonna be cool, really. It´s always better to make a fool out of yourself in another country. Because we don´t have to go there again if we fail.

Maybe. But your record company is based there.

Yes, of course. I forgot about that. Na, it´s gonna be a blast, really.

But why did you never play in Stockholm, for example?

Well, we haven´t rehearsed really much either, we just rehearsed before the album actually so this time we really have to rehearse now. While Johan lives down there we don´t have that much time to rehearse either. It´s mainly because of the rehearsing situation, I guess. Well, I don´t know, really. We were offered some tours when the last album came out but there was like… We were offered a tour with DISMEMBER for like a month or something. I mean, Johan has a real job, and our guitar player has a real job, and it´s a bit hard to get free from the job for like a month or something. And I´m a student, so it´s also hard to be away a month from university, you miss quite a lot I guess. And you always loose a lot of money going on tour. But of course we could have done some gigs here and there, absolutely, but... That´s a hard question, I´m sorry, I don´t think that I can answer that one. I will think about it. Perhaps I can answer it after the shows then.

Are there possibilities to see you on other shows except of Holland?

Not yet. I meant we haven´t got any plans right now, but hopefully we can go to Germany. That would be really great, I mean, just to speak some German, too. We haven´t planned anything right now, but hopefully we can go there sometime, too, definitely.

In fact he has already played live in Germany, back in the early nineties:

Johan and me did a tour with FURBOWL in Germany in 1993, I think. We have been on the road together with THERION. Hamburg is nice, Berlin as well.

Do you already have a proper fanbase? Are there countries in which your sales are better than in others? Here in German the release was quite late, I guess it was about a month after the other European countries.

And then it took like a month to get out the promo copies after the release, too, so it was a kind of weird I guess. But I guess it turned out a lot better in the United States. We have got a lot of really cool reviews over there, too. And I got a lot of mails from the woman who takes care over the business over there. We´ve been played on the radio a lot and she seems very satisfied with it. So I´d say the United States.

Why are you signed to Karmageddon Media? Johan has worked for Wez and New Haven Records.

Karmageddon Media was the first one that was really interested, and they really believed in us from the beginning, I guess that´s why we chose them, really. We talked a little bit to New Haven, too, but the money situation there is a bit tense, they just go for one band in a time. And I am extremely satisfied with Karmageddon Media anyway. So it´s just great to be on that label, I couldn´t be more satisfied really.

Just by interest: What are you studying?

I´m studying to be a teacher. I´ve been working already as a teacher but I haven´t been educated to be a teacher before, so it was about time now. I´m a student again after all those years in school. After those many years it seems a little bit weird to be in school again. On the papers it is a full time studies, but in fact it isn´t. There are some lame days here and there and you can be free and do whatever you want instead of studying. It leaves enough time to make music. It´s really great. I really don´t miss working at the moment.

I read the thanks list in the booklet of "Armageddon Mon Amour". Michael Amott, guitarist and "head" of ARCH ENEMY, is mentioned two or three times, do you have a good relationship altogether?

Yeah, I mean, I know Michael since 1987, I think I met him the first time that year. And we lived in the same town for a couple of years. We did hang out a lot back then, and Johan and he have been playing together for many years.

But if it is more or less right what I read about it there was some kind of bad blood after he was forced to leave ARCH ENEMY.

Yes, it was, back then. But now they are really friends again. And there are no hard feelings right now. And I have never had any problem with Michael, he´s always been a friend of mine.

You haven´t been in ARCH ENEMY.

No. And I haven´t been playing with him seriously either. So, we´ve just been jamming some time, I guess that´s the main thing. And I should never form a band with him, I guess. But he really is a friend of mine, so there is no problem. He helped out a lot before the album. We discussed a lot about guitar sounds. I play some guitars on the album, too. And I had no idea about how to make it sound good. Then he helped out a lot with some sound ideas.

This was "Michael Amott´s online guitar support".

Yes. There was a lot of emailing.

Now, five minutes to go ´til I´ll watch Germany-Holland.

Why?!? Football is making people crazy, i think.

Yes, it is. And it is helping people to set free Adrenaline, which I think is good.

I can´t really see the point. I love playing football myself, but I can´t really see the point in sitting there and watching other people play. Last week I was out to the school where I was working before. There is always a football game on the last day before the summer vacation, all the teachers play against the nine-graders. And I use to go there every year still because I always take part at this football match, even though I don´t work there anymore. It was really cool playing football. I actually live close to the arena here in Stockholm where AIK Stockholm is based. We have got three teams here from Stockholm, AIK, Hammerby and Djurgårdens, which means "Animal Farm". I live close to the arena where also the national games take part, I guess that´s why I really hate football nowadays. I thought that football was a kind of cool before I moved here to Stockholm. But now there´s so many goddamn idiots hanging around here when there is a football game.

MindGrinder has existed since 96 but it took us some time to get going for real. The band has always been brutalised by Titan (Guitar) Nitrous (Gutar) and me, Cosmo, handeling the vox and bass duties. We released two 3 track demos, (Demolition 2001 and Bless the Imbeciles) which were well welcomed. Then we got a deal and we recorded the MindTech album late 2002. Due to our labels financial problems at that point, we had to postpone the albums release for a while. The whole thing ended when we decided to buy the album ourselves and terminate our cooperation with the label. After a short while we got a deal with Nocturnal Art. At the same time we added a new member to the band, namely the extremely talented drummer Dan. Concerning Source of Tide; the band still excists, but they are currently missing some members and keeping a low profile working on new material. Well, about sideprojects.. Titan, Nitrous and I have a 80’s metal cover (Kiss, Dio, Ozzy, Motörhead etc) band called Spider which we do some shows with from time to time, it’s great fun! Titan allso works with a project called Evilizer. Dan works from time to time with his old band Psycopathus. There might be some new projects in the future.

So introduce also your music….

We have always been going for a combination of groove and aggessiveness, what ever genre we work in aren’t really of any great concern to us, it’s just metal basicly. I don’t know what you mean by "strange”, but there are certain songs that might be pointed out as abit different than the others, for example Starspawned Vision which evenhas some clean vox. The "not easy to consume” part will mostly be up to the listener to deal with. If you spin the album in your CD player form time to time it could posably get more consumable maybe?

And what about the lyrics?

Oh, the lyrics are of the brand "angry with humanity and its residents” lyrics, he he. The lyrics are not the most important element to us, but they keep a certain standard which suits us fine. There is no concept idea behind the lyrics, they all stand as individual texts, some dealing with the same issues.

Although you are mindgrinding since eight years there’s nothing about touring, or?

We are doing some local festivals and supporting Testament at Rockefeller Hall, Oslo the 10th of June. Later on in September we wil join in on a "farewell to Windir and Valfar ” gig, allso at Rockefeller Hall. Appart from theese gigs I don’t see any tour coming up untill the Fall, which will be a busy time for us as we plan to record the next album there. We haven’t been doing any touring with MG yet, this is right.

But in fact, you like festivals?

Festivals are cool, but they tend to not give the artist the time and space they usually need to do their best. Anyway we will coop fine with this I guess, we are an easy going band mind(grind)ing our own business. The best ever festival I attended was the "Mygg und Presenning Festivalen”.

Let’s talk a bit about Norway.

Norway is known for all the good (and some not so good) BM bands. Still there is a lot more going on here; thrash, death, industrial/metal etc, bands with character and great creativity. Here at Notodden we have some bands representing different styles but still many of them are the offspring of the late great Emperor. Norway is a great country to live in, we have whatever we need here. We invented the mighty cheeseslicer ("Ostehövel”) and the even mightier clip-on ("Binders”) and we are extremely proud of it and talk about it on a dayly basis while having some zips of our homemade mooshine. People tend to ask us if there are polarbears in the streets; yes there is, but they are now Black (Metal) Bears because of all the oil flowing in the streets, which is also the reason for Norwegian Black (oil) Metal!! Come to Norway and see all the Danish tourists sking and the Americans wondering when the "Hardangerfjorden” opens, it’s fantastic!

Back to music: What about favourite bands and influences?

Back to music, yes! ;) I have different favourites from time to time, but in general we are talking about the usual stuff like Slayer, Carcass, Mercyful Fate/King Diamond, Morbid Angel, Metallica, Obituary, Testament, Kreator, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla…

Your are also able to tell us something about the famous Akkerhaugen.

Yes, We recorded the album at well known Akkerhaugen Studio (Emperor, Myrkskog, Zyklon, Source of Tide, Windir) with Toby Akkerhaugen as our engineer. It took us about 2 weeks to record and mix it, but then again we had allready done some stuff at my studio prior to the Akkehaugen Studio session. For the most part the most interesting that happened there was the fact that the MindGrinder debut album MindTech was given birth!! ;)

And what about the normal life of a mindgrinder?

All of us have to work with regular jobs to get by and some of us go to schoola and universities having to get big loans to finance this. We are normal slaves to routine society, ha!! Concerning hobbies we have different tastes; some like weapons, some war history, some like cars, boats etc, but in genreal most of our "speartime” goes to music.

Something sad at the end: Valfar, mastermind of the great Windir, died. Cosmo sang at Windir. Can you tell me something about his death…? And try to describe, what the metal scene has lost….

I will not go in to details about Valfars death, but he froze to death, that’s a fact. More information about this tragedy will be revealed by the Windir clan themselves if they feel like it. What I will tell you is that the Norwegian Metal Society lost an important person which amused and meant a lot to many people. He lives on in his work. RIP.