EVERGREY’s Tom Englund on ‘The Atlantic’, The Band Being Robbed & Twenty Years In Music (2018)
Metal Wani’s Carl O’Rourke sat down with Everygrey frontman and mastermind Tom S. Englund to talk about the bands up coming album ‘The Atlantic’, how the band came back from having the records original incarnation stolen as well as what he hopes the bands legacy will look like, and much more!
On the bands upcoming new album’ ‘The Atlantic’, Tom spoke about how it fits into the trilogy of records Evergrey have produced.
“The first album of this trilogy of albums was the ‘Hymns For The Broken’ album, where I was at a point in my life where I felt I needed to change something. I wasn’t sure of what it was at that time but I needed that. Change was about to come. For ‘The Storm Within’ album, those thoughts were even more evident to me and I would say I even unconsciously made a decision that I had to leave. And I’d say ‘The Atlantic’ album is where I am now. Maybe not stranded on a new shore, but at least on the other side of a huge dark obstacle that was taking me through the depths of the deep end and the frustrations and the fears, and the thoughts of who I will become next.”
Having had their studio broken into and all their work to date on ‘The Atlantic’ stolen, Tom reflected.
“Aw man, that was the worst fucking timing ever. I had written three songs and recorded them with vocals, and I was in a good place vibe wise and I knew what I wanted to do. I was really looking forward to it. I had a very short amount of time to do it, which I usually like, you know, to have the time pressure, but then going to America to work with the other band I’m in, Redemption, the flight was booked and so I had to get it done within three weeks or so.”
“Then I came to the studio one day and we’d had this break in. They stole the computers and the backup discs and everything. So, it was a major setback at the time. Also, the years of experience we have within this business have taught us that we just have to refocus and sort of try to decide on how to fix this mess. So that’s what we did, and we decided I should go to L.A and write in the mornings there.”
Tom continued,
“So I woke up at seven o clock in the morning, sat in the California sun writing Scandinavian darkness. [Laughs] In hindsight, I would say this was extremely beneficial for this album, because I had a lot more time to spend on the lyrics and on each phrase. So it worked out great.”
Asked if this incident had not taken place, would ‘The Atlantic’ have sounded different.
“I can’t help to think that it would have been. I hear a lot of aggression and frustration in some of the songs. It also brought me, all of us basically, to a point where we were extremely vulnerable in the face of other people affecting our work process so badly by just taking a stupid thing like a computer away from us. So yeah, we were facing the worst nightmare ever but we followed through and I think it made the album more intense in a way.”
On over twenty years of making music, Tom shared,
“For good or bad, we have been doing it our way forever. I don’t necessarily see it as a good thing either, [Laughs] at least if you look success wise, but at least we stay true to ourselves and write the music we want to write primarily in order to keep ourselves happy. Now we’ve become very fortunate to reach our eleventh album very soon and have people around the world that like to listen to our songs, and I mean we’re just super happy for that fact.”
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