Interview: Oscar Leander of Tribulation
Interviewed by Tim Finch
Tribulation ended 2019 on a roll, they had just finished a huge European arena tour with the mighty Ghost. In 2020 the band were due to release a new album by mid year and hit the road to build upon that momentum. Instead COVID hit, they spent more time working on the album and ended the year with a line up change.
2021 will be a better year, album 'Where The Gloom Becomes Sound' will get it's release this January, and take it from me, it is worth the wait! We sit down with drummer Oscar to reflect on the events of the past 18 months and look forward to the future.
The Razor's Edge: Welcome to The Razor's Edge
Oscar: Thanks for having me!
The Razor's Edge: It’s been a strange year. The last time I saw you guys was on the Ghost tour last year. How was that tour for you?
Oscar: Where did you see us on that tour?
The Razor's Edge: We saw you in Leeds.
Oscar: Leeds yeah! That was a great show. It was really good for us to tour with Ghost. We got the tour through Tobias, who is a friend of ours. So it was friendly from the start, they were really nice to us, they are an impressive touring machine. A big audience, a big stage, it was all good.
It was a year ago and now we can’t do any concerts, I get a little sentimental.
The Razor's Edge: Both musically and visually you and Ghost are very suited to each other.
Oscar: It was a good package!
The Razor's Edge: That was a huge tour, playing to arena’s every night. A real chance to win over new fans I guess?
Oscar: The response was really good. We kind of notice a lot of Ghost fans following us now. It’s a pity we can’t follow it up. I was in another band before joining Tribulation called Deathstars and we supported Rammstein in 2011/12 and that was obviously a super big tour and the problem there was we didn’t follow it up and I don’t want to end up there again, you know. The reason you do those tours is to gain more fans and get out and about!
The Razor's Edge: The world has turned to shit since then, has 2020 had any effect on the momentum you were building?
Oscar: It’s hard to say, we have changed our plans a bit. After that tour we spent Christmas with our families and then we were supposed to finish song writing. Then head into the studio and release ‘Where The Gloom Becomes Sound’ in early September. But since the shit hit the fan we realised we had much more time so we changed our plans.
But that was good as we’ve been touring a lot so it was a nice to have a little break and focus on the song writing. It was also very relaxing being in the studio this time round. Being there is never fully relaxing, you have a studio that’s costing money every day and so on, but a bit more relaxed I would say.
I’m hoping and counting on people wanting to see bands again. So we are definitely going to be one of those bands out touring again. Some bands may fold actually, it’s been a hard year, we were lucky to be in the writing and recording phase of the cycle.
We’ll see, maybe we can’t even play next year and it might be a bit tougher.
The Razor's Edge: A few weeks ago you announced a line-up change, Jonathan stepping aside and Joseph Tholl stepping in. It all seems very amicable, which is good. Was there any driver in particular that saw Jonathan step away?
Oscar: There are a lot of sides to this story. He just felt his soul kind of left the band a little bit. This year and this break he had more time to think about what he really wants and what’s important. Johannes, Adam and Jonathan had been playing together for nearly twenty years so I think he felt he wanted to do something else and explore that fully.
I couldn’t help notice that the last few years he wasn’t really present and there in what we were doing. Even though he was writing the greatest songs and of course he is committed, but not in the sense that he wanted to be. It was not an easy choice for him.
The remaining guys believe strongly in what we do and a band member cannot be bigger than the band itself. We feel what we are doing is important and has meaning for us, so we wanted to continue. The door is open for Jonathan, but right now he doesn’t want to do it, so it’s the best choice for everyone I guess.
The Razor's Edge: How did you go about finding his replacement?
Oscar: Well Joseph is also from our town of Arvika, we’ve been friends since forever. Joseph has been writing some songs with the guys, he was co-writing on some of the songs for this record. He used to play with Adam in Enforcer before, so he’s been around. He was one of those guys that been helping out, when we recorded ‘Alive & Dead at Södra Teatern’ he was there helping me out, helping set up, sometimes even driving us to shows.
So Jonathan was like “I want to leave the band, but I think you should call Joseph”, so it feels very natural for us to have him. He’s a really good song writer and we think he can provide, feed the Tribulation beast so to speak.
The Razor's Edge: So let’s talk about the album, ‘Where The Gloom Becomes Sound’. I’ve had the pleasure of listening to it all week and it’s sonically stunning!
Oscar: Thank you.
The Razor's Edge: You went into the studio in April. I know Sweden wasn’t subject to the restrictions we were in the UK. Did the pandemic have any effect on the writing and recording of the album?
Oscar: It did a little bit. The guy who mixed the album, Tom Dalgety, he’s in the UK and he was supposed to be in the studio with us, helping producing. So he couldn’t really be here, so we had skype meetings and things like that. Other than that to our advantage I would say.
We were hanging out with each other, we had this studio, we rented it from a friend of ours – Linus who is playing in Lucifer – he used to do some front of house for us. I am a carpenter when not playing drums and I actually built the control room in the studio, so we got the studio for a fair price. So we could rehearse everything for two weeks before recording it. It was not one of those fancy studios, which we used during the ‘Down Below’ record where we recorded the drums in one week in a high end studio in Stockholm. We wanted to have the drums set up for the whole session this time round, we wanted to finish one song at a time. We wanted to progress the whole way of doing things from what we weren’t really happy with last time. It was very nice, more of a lo-fi studio, not the best drum room but we created something special there.
And we had our front of house guy Jamie in to help co-produce and track the record. So we didn’t have this whole getting to know each other period which was very nice.
The Razor's Edge: Do you think the different approach you have taken to recording the album had made a difference to the end product?
Oscar: No I don’t think so. This time round we really thought through the album and it turned out how we wanted. We might have had a little bit different view on how the mix would end, but Tom Dalgety really put the last little sprinkle on top so to speak and we are really happy.
The Razor's Edge: What do you want the listener to take away from having listened to this album?
Oscar: I think to start with you need to listen to the album from track one to the end! It’s how we put the songs together, like a vinyl you know, you listen to side a and then to side b. I think the band has always been progressing from each record. The first four records are different from one another, and I think this records is also different but instead of adding something new into the groove we kind of put ourselves into the whole thing. It is even more folky in some parts, it’s even more hard rock sometimes. It’s that which makes the album special. We’ve tried to put the finger on what we are in this record.
The Razor's Edge: Do you pay much attention to the reviews in the press when they come in?
Oscar: I would be lying if I said no. But it doesn’t matter, what does matter is that we find meaning in what we are doing. Of course we want people to like it, but we like it so that’s enough for me.
The Razor's Edge: Are you planning anything to mark the launch of the album? I guess usually you’d be hitting the road, but that’s a bit restricted right now.
Oscar: No [sighs]. We are not planning anything like that and Sweden is a bit more like lock down right now. Adam just moved and became a father so we are a bit more spread out. We might have a zoom party, that’s how the kids are doing it [laughs].
The Razor's Edge: A lot of bands are jumping on the live streaming bandwagon. Have you thought about that?
Oscar: Well it’s been thought of. Our manager is talking about it all the time, but we don’t really think it’s something for us. I mean it could be of course. But It’s quite hard to create what we are in the live stream, it doesn’t feel that comfortable. I guess we could do it, but we are really hoping the vaccine kicks in and the audience really can smell the incense.
The Razor's Edge: Certainly from a fans point of view whilst I watched streamed to start with when the pandemic hit, it’s not as enjoyable as being at a gig in person.
Oscar: No, but I totally respect people doing it. It’s doable but we have been so busy with the record that we haven’t reached a point where we need to consider it. Maybe we will in April and May if the festivals start getting cancelled.
The Razor's Edge: So finally, what’s next for you as a band. Where do you go from here?
Oscar: The next thing is for us to keep on growing, I think we are, maybe not as quick as we want to, but it’s a solid growth. To grow as a band we can do things more the way we want to. I would love to see the band within five years playing bigger theatres. It doesn’t have to be like the Ghost tour with big arenas. Of course that’s cool, but it doesn’t make you happier in the end. What makes you happy is to find meaning and do what you want to do and theatres would be really cool.
And to keep on writing music. Now with Joseph we are really keen to write more songs and maybe do another record soon.
The Razor's Edge: And if we don’t come out of lockdown you’ll have time to do it next year.
Oscar: Yeah exactly [laughs] who knows?
