The Unguided just released a great album and will be soon enough on tour, time to clear some things out about the new album (always great when you only get the music and not the booklet) …
You just released an album called ‘Lust and Loathing’, what’s the story behind it?
Rich: Well the big picture of it is that - a bit more than 5 years ago - my brother; Roger, our buddy; Roland and I decided we’d do a pretty ambitious project ranging over a total of 3 albums and release it under the name; “The Unguided”. So what you are seeing now is really the climax of that vision. It’s a semi concept album, as well as its successors, and the story is implemented in the booklet of this final album if you’d like to examine it closer. During this 5 year journey we banded together with bassist Henric and drummer Richard “Rille” as well, and Lust and Loathing is the sum of a lot of hard work we all put into it last year. Everyone contributed in their way and it was finalized in Denmark at Hansen Studios by awesome producer Jacob Hansen.
Once again you managed to get great artwork. My 7 year old son wants to know more about the album cover, who is it on the front cover? Are they fighting?
Rich: Thank you! The Chinese artist making them; Kuang Hong, is really talented. If you are a little bit familiar to our history, the female character to the right is based on a creature from an old album we did more than 10 years ago, called; Eden Fire (2005), whilst our hero to the right was introduced with our debut album Hell Frost (2011) and is really the main character in the story. And yes, they are fighting. Together they are settling the final score with that synthetic being in the middle and extracting, from him, this “cog”, which in the story, is his source of consciousness and really the root of all evil. The illustration vaguely have ties to another old album called; Love and OtherDisasters (2008), where you can find a machine taking out his heart and replacing it with a cog. If you want to find out more about the story, you should really check out the booklet of this album, it’s all there!
You also released a video for Enraged, where was it shot? It looks like a pretty stylish place?
Rich: Enraged was filmed in an administration building of an old brewery called Lyckholms, located in Gothenburg. The brewery started around 1881 and the administration building is used for conferences, and now also the recording of rock videos hehe. Really striking location and that Lyckholms dude sure was some character, which you could tell, by how the place was furnished and fashioned.
This song is also the perfect mix of all the styles you are reaching out. It’s one of these tracks where the complexity of the structure and the blending in of the styles show off the great studio work. How did it all go? Pretty fast or did you take your time?
Rich: It was pretty much normal process with this song, save for the fact that we spent a lot of time on the melodies to make them perfect. It got a little bit of everything, but I’d say in the end, it’s not really a typical The Unguided song. First time I heard it, I was like; this one sure would be great to open the album with! It really sets the album off in a great atmosphere.
The one shot recording of the lyrics (like the video you posted on your Facebook), is it true or was it just fooling around and playing?
Rich: Haha the cover of Electric for the band NERVED? Those guest vocals was recorded in a studio on the west coast of Sweden and I must admit I needed a bit more than one try to nail.
My son also totally adores the video for ‘The worst day (revisited)’, do you have any plans to create a strip album with the artwork connected to the album? A bit like Skeptical Minds did with their album ‘Omega Thanatos’? I’m prey sure fans will love it!
Rich: There’s no plans for this trilogy to do anything like that, but possibly for the future! We’ll see what happens. For the video Inception from our last album, you can find a lot of sketches related to the story, also made by Kuang Hong. I think he made like 10 sketches, to be implemented in that video concept. If your son liked The Worst Day I’m sure he’d like that as well, and be sure to check out the lyric video to Defector DCXVI also, since that’s really the same concept.
I dropped HIM as a possible influence, could that be?
Rich: I’m sure we all have listened to HIM in the band at one point in our carriers, so I guess we’re fragmentally influenced since it’s been in our lives, you know. But for me, it’s definitely not a main source of inspiration in any way. I know our bassist; Henric, mention HIM when talking about his song writing, and he wrote the music to The Worst Day.
With King of Clubs is wrote down names like Rammstein, Tool and Skrillex. How do you feel it?
Rich: I can’t say any of these bands really hit the spot for me, I have some Tool albums, which I enjoy some tracks on. I think Rammstein is the most overrated band on the planet, and Skrillex music is nothing I’ve really took notice of save from his collaboration with Korn. I guess you are referring to that dubstep “YOLO”-part in King of Clubs, talking about Skrillex? We did that to see what reactions we could get. Dubstep is pretty “out” 2016, but we are not really following trends or ideals, so we figured let’s introduce it to our music in 2016, just make it awkward to some. I’m pretty sure it was a one-time thing, and I actually like that part a lot!
What is Operation E.A.E. about and what does the E.AE. mean?
Rich: “Operation: E.A.E.” is about hope and how you should give everything you got, rather than give up, when you’re in a dire situation. Final resistance of sort. E.A.E. means “Emanate and Eradicate”, but can also be read as 616 (E being the sixth letter in the alphabet and A the first), which is the sacred number of The Unguided.
Do you think you could record in the near future a real ballad?
Rich: Heartseeker wasn’t ballad enough for you? Geez! We have no intensions to put our music on a leash and restrict ourselves, so we’ll see what happens in the future. But I think Heartseeker was the most rock ballad-inspired song we’ve done so far.
Llife is a bitch and sometimes it kills you, right? It must be hard to see your opening band in the papers the next day with a car crash and loose them? It must have been really emotional?
Rich: Yeah, that was some really dark and sad stuff. It was not our direct support band in anyway, they played on a different stage at the same festival before us, but I personally travelled the same route they did, just moment after they had their accident and reading the news when I woke up the day after really broke my heart. Never take life for granted.
Seems like this year we lost a lot of our heroes: Lemmy, David Bowie, famous actors … Ho’s death struck you the most?
Rich: Not sure what to say, I’ve shared stage with Lemmy, and even if I wasn’t a huge fan of his musical work, I’m a huge fan of what heave done for the community. Same goes for Bowie. I think all death is heart shattering, as sure as it’s certain… I would not be able to weigh it towards each other in any way.
In our previous interview you told me that another Zardonic remix/work out would happen, did I miss it for this album or is it still coming?
Rich: I think we had our time and it kind of played out its function a bit. It was sure great fun with the remixes we did in 2012-2013, and he really outdid himself with that Phoenix Down remix. But as that’s clearly hard to beat, and Unguided Entity and Deathwalker remix, didn’t get close to the same quality, I figured it was time to move on. We introduced a live track (even 2 on the Japan release) of Lust and Loathing, I guess that was a cool treat for the fans and something new from our side.
Are there bands you want to tour with (I know for obvious reason: Blind Guardian)?
Rich: Haha I’d love to tour with Blind Guardian! Other than that, I’m not sure. We had a really good release shows with our good friends in dEMOTIONAL, Decepticand A Silent Escape, seeing the atmosphere of that day, I’d love to do an entire tour of it. Also our other buddies in Dead By April would be cool to go out with.
Is there a possibility you come to Belgium?
Rich: Unfortunately there’s no show in Belgium on the upcoming Europe tour. But maybe there’s something close in a nearby country? Would be awesome to at least do a show on this album cycle there, since we haven’t been in Belgium with The Unguided at all!
Any last words to close this interview?
Rich: All check out Lust and Loathing! There’s a little bit for everyone on there for sure!
Best /Richard Sjunnesson
Click here for the album review
