Swedish Titans Unleashed present Fire Upon Your Lands

Photo Credit: Jens Rydén

Swedish Titans Unleashed present Fire Upon Your Lands

Swedish titans Unleashed prove their status as undisputed guardians of the death metal throne – delivering a relentless war cry with their highly anticipated 15th studio album, Fire Upon Your Lands!  A stunning magnum opus of epic proportions, Fire Upon Your Lands is now available worldwide via Napalm Records!  Highwire Daze recently interviewed lead vocalist / bassist / founding member Johnny Hedlund to find out more about the amazing new album, as well as highlights from a vast and dynamic career in music!  Read on…

We’re here with Johnny Hedlund from Unleashed. First of all, let’s immediately talk about the new album, Fire Upon Your Lands. Is there any overall story or concept behind the upcoming album?
What is it now? I think this is a sixth album where the entire thing is from a book me and a friend wrote years ago, but we never published it. It was never finished. Since we never had the time to finish it, I thought it would be a good idea to put some of the chapters into lyrics, so to speak. It’s more of a translation from the chapters and, of course, it’s a lot of work to try and fit it but we think it worked out very well.  The entire storyline is really just a continuation from the previous album.

Let’s talk about a few of the songs, War Comes Again. Give me the inspiration behind it.
The entire thing with the song is… well, first of all, it’s obviously the content of the song is because of it sprang from the story line again. But overall, you could probably lift out just any of the songs, any of the lyrics and apply that to your everyday life, which is really what this song is about. Life is such a battle, and I think what we’ve done in Unleashed ever since the beginning is – we’ve looked at life as something that is always a battle, but you have to stand up and fight and win it. Eventually, we all die, and we know that. That’s a certainty. So, what you can do on the way there is just, you can try and be as heroic as possible and you can’t win all the battles, but you can’t give in, you can’t give up. That’s what that song is all about. We know it’s going to happen again. Shit will hit the fan. All the atrocities and misery that’s in life will probably come your way at some point or maybe many times. So, War Comes Again is really about that. You have to stand up and fight it. .

Would you like to tour in support of this new album or have you already started?
Actually, we’re not really touring that extensively anymore. We try and play as many shows and festivals as we can, but we’re not going out for a six-month tour, like three months in a row that we used to do way back then back in the day. But we try and play as much as we can, and the songs from this album are going to appear for the first time of the set list in August.

When was the last time Unleashed played here in the States? Is there any chance of you coming to the States for this album?
Oh, yeah, man. We will. We played Maryland Deathfest now in May and it was amazing. Just fantastic and we had a great time.  It’s been really nice to see people again that we met a few years ago and it’s just amazing. It was really cool. We play another show in Chicago in October. We’re coming back and we always will, even though we don’t play that extensively anymore, we don’t make the seven-week touring that we did back in the day.

Well, hopefully we see you back here in Los Angeles sometime. That would be cool.
Yeah, man. Yeah, for sure. Hell, yeah.

You’re celebrating a few anniversaries this year and I wanted to go over some of them. Let’s go back nearly 20 years. Next year will be the anniversary of Midvinterblot. When you look back on that album from 2006, what do you think of it now in retrospect?
We still played songs from that album live and we really like it. It’s also one of those albums where I knew instantly that people are going to say, well, you’re on the right path. Because I think when Midvinterblot came out, we released a lot of albums in the past and, of course, people liked them, but again… it was just also a time where Fredrik Folkare started to make, I think, pretty much all of the music. Previously, I had been involved a lot in making the music, but I think this album, he did most of the music. So, it’s a good thing. I really enjoy it. Good album for us.

Photo Credit:: Jens Rydén

We’re going to go back 30 years now to 1995 to Victory on Century Media Records. When you look back on that album and the fact it’s been 30 years, what do you think of it now in retrospect?
It’s strange to even be saying that. It’s been some time, man. It’s crazy. When we released Victory and got out there on our European tours and everything that we did.  We went to America and we had no idea it was going to last that long. We were just out there drinking beer, banging some heads, and meeting people and fucking having a great time. On Victory, that was still the same. We didn’t really aim for anything else than just to go out and have a good time and maybe release a killer album next time again. But these were the days. It was more beer probably than organization, I would say. Again, we still play some of the songs live occasionally.  On Victory, that’s when we realized that, man, we’re pretty good at this! We could probably do this a lot better. If we actually could make some money too and not just play because we made zero money back then. The problem is making zero money is that you can’t buy new guitars. I didn’t even have a vocal system to sing through. It’s ridiculous. My microphone was the worst in the whole of Europe. It was horrible. So we realized at that time that we had to do something about it. I’m not going to say we actually did on the Victory album, but we started to understand that’s how it is. So, lesson learned, but I guess now it’s easy to say 30 years later.

Then your first demos came out in 1990, which is 35 years ago. You’re pretty much celebrating your 35th anniversary as a band, probably actually 36 years. What goes through your mind realizing that you’ve done anything for 35 plus years?
Yeah, man. I’m telling you, it’s crazy. I actually think about these things now. I didn’t even reflect on it 20 years ago, but it was there. If you’ve done something for 15 years, that’s pretty good. But 35, 36, that’s crazy. I haven’t had the same house, car, clothes. What is it that lasts for 37 years? It’s crazy.  It’s strange to even think about that. It’s a long time but it’s been good. It’s been a good ride.

Fredrik Folkare also does a lot of Melodic Rock albums. He’s been on an Eclipse album, Heart Wind, Winding Road. What do you think of Fredrik’s work in these other bands and do you like Melodic Rock?
It’s not really my absolute, but to be honest with you, although I do like bands like Eclipse. For example, he’s not really a member of the band, but he’s been playing on the records. Melodic Rock is not really my exact cup of tea, but yeah, he does some amazing stuff. He’s a really good guitar player, so he could probably play anywhere and do a good job. So yeah, it’s cool, man. It’s good because he doesn’t really like to have a part-time job. He just wants to do music and it’s good for him, man. It’s all good.

Photo Credit: Jens Rydén

Looking back on your time spent with Nihilist, what do you think of it now in retrospect?
I think it was a good time. That’s when things started up for us in Sweden. Way back then, we were a lot more just thinking about the next party. There were so few responsibilities, obviously, because we were young, teenagers, so you didn’t really have to think about anything else then maybe get a show in Stockholm, maybe, or in Sweden, perhaps. If somebody would actually have us playing a couple of songs because death metal wasn’t popular at all back then. Even for youth centers and stuff like that where we actually did play eventually, they couldn’t understand what the hell we were doing. Even the studio we recorded our first demos, they had no idea what the hell that was all about. They almost refused it at one point. They didn’t want to put their name on it. So it was a good time, but I’d say more beer, more party and more headbanging other than responsibilities. So it was just a good time for a couple of young guys, man. It was good. It was cool. I look back at it with just some serious good laughs and a good time.

Are you currently involved with any other bands or projects outside of Unleashed?
No, not really. I did actually finish a book that I’m coming out, which is a lot about the Viking tradition. But that one is going to be probably published next year. But that’s pretty much it. I don’t have another band project. I don’t really have the time for that at all. So it probably never will happen, but you never know. Maybe there’s something that’s going to happen, but it will not be because I have a lot of other stuff that I haven’t published in Unleashed, that’s for sure. I don’t have a bunch of extra material. So, if I do something different, it will be because somebody asked me about it just to participate or something like that. But I have no plans like that right now because it’s crazy a lot. It’s so much with Unleashed that it’s almost ridiculous! I think it’s enough.

Did you have any messages for Unleashed fans who’ve been following you for all these years who are reading this now?
Oh, for sure. Yeah. I just want to say a big thank you for everybody who’s been with us all this time. Whether you’ve seen us on the net, or whether you’ve seen us live, or if you listen to our music in some fashion. I’m just really happy that everybody is still with us.  We’ll be back in the US as many times as we can with this new album. We’re looking forward to seeing you guys again!

(Interview by Ken Morton)

UNLEASHED are:
Johnny Hedlund – Bass, Vocals
Anders Schultz – Drums
Tomas Måsgard – Guitars
Fredrik Folkare – Guitars

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