Interviews: A Conversation with PAIN OF SALVATION'S Daniel Gildenlow
Posted on Tuesday, February 06 @ 17:33:39 EST
Topic: Interviews
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A Conversation with
Pain of Salvation’s Daniel Gildenlow
by Tommy “Hashman” Hash
Years into their trek inside the world of mind-blowing technical metal, Pain of Salvation continue path of the bold and experimental. With their latest record ‘Scarsick,’ the saga of ‘The Perfect Element’ is beholden upon us again for its second part seven years after the fact. Having gotten two ‘diffrenet’ records out of the band’s system, both “Be” and the acoustic “12:5,” Pain of Salvation returned back to their edgy sound, at the helm of this sound is frontman Daniel Gildenlow.
Even though the sound might be back to the band’s typical metal mindset, no stone was left unturned when it came to the concept, for which Gildenlow explains fully. After many different records, an appearance at ProgPower, successful tours, the departure of a bassist, and a DVD release, Daniel Gildnelow spoke in detail about the current record, the ‘Perfect Element Part 2,’ the recording, and the future of Pain of Salvation.
Tommy Hash: First off, tell me about ‘Scarsick’ and how it fits within the mold of the Pain of Salvation catalog, and how you personally feel that it differs from the elaborate ‘Be.’ I know that ‘Scarsick’ is a concept album, but it sounds like you went back to making records that were more in the regular PoS sound as opposed to the last two, the acoustic ‘12: 5’ included.
Daniel Gildenlow: First of all, I thing we all really longed to go back into making a really ‘band oriented’ album, focusing much more on ‘band insturments’ rather than having orchestras and instruments that even in the band we played like harpsichords and mandolas like we did on ‘12:5’ and ‘Be,’ where there were a lot of different things going on. So we wanted to go back to making a ‘band oriented’ album and also, the concept of ‘Scarsick’ revolves a lot on anger and frustration; and I wanted that to be visible or audible in the music as well of course. This album has been the longest in the making when it comes to both recording and working with the sounds, mixing it, it’s taken longer than any of the previous albums. It was hard for me to keep that raw feeling, because when this album was as well planned as this one, it’s hard to make it come across as intuitive and direct. So I have spent a lot of effort and time to maintain that original energy that all of us felt when came to the rehearsal room to present the ideas and try to maintain the feeling through the whole process which is not an easy task; it’s been more than a year since I introduced the musical ideas to the band and during that process, you spend a lot of time with the music.
Looking at it being different from ‘Be,’ it would be easier to pick out what is actually similar, that would take much shorter time. Then again, ‘Be’ was very different from the previous albums as well.
TH: I understand that it is ‘real life’ events that inspire what you write lyrically, what was the basis behind the story of ‘Scarsick.’
DG: ‘Scarsick’ is actually the second part of ‘The Perfect Element,’ many of the ideas were ‘in the system’ when we created ‘The Perfect Element Part I’ and it is an album about ‘society vs. individual’ and it is a natural continuation of ‘TPE’ where we focus on Symptomology of these two kind of broken, dysfunctional individuals; but with this album we focus on the outside world or contemporary society as being displaced by television because it is very interesting to see what we choose to portray real life when it comes to television, because that is a very severe filtering system. It’s interesting to see what we actually think is worth making, broadcasting, or displaying for other people.
In that sense what we are doing is looking at Symptomology, and seeing how society shares a lot of those same problems & dysfunctions as we can see in individuals, which of course are natural because they are products of society. Of course the outside world and real life has provided useful influences for ‘Scarsick,’ especially since the world has taken a turn since 9/11 happened and also when it comes to television, it’s a process that keeps escalating every year as well as commercials, products that can be sold to the right amount of people for the right amount of money or currency that you are after; that is the point with songs like “Disco Queen” and “Kingdom of Loss,” the things we deal with in those songs, today the society we see around us today is promoting that you are supposed to allow yourself to abuse other people and to be abused by other people as long as you get something in return, whatever it is you are asking for, fame, success, or money. The whole first part, or ‘first side’ as we chose to call it, deals with different themes of abuse. On a social level, ‘TPE’ part one deals with abuse on an individual level, where we talk about drug abuse, abusing other people, yourself, and now we see the social patterns the Symptomology of society with dysfunctional individuals, so the question is what would the cure be. I don’t believe in some sort of mental institution for the global society as a whole.
TH: I myself noticed that you split the album in half with ‘side one/side two’ and back in the days of LPs and even cassettes there was always this division of the first and second half of a record, regardless of the type of music. There was always something special about actually having to ‘flip the album over.’ Now with CDs, it doesn’t exist anymore; you get the music in one big sitting. You did get my attention when I saw the ‘side’ listing on the CD and I could tell a difference between the first and second half. Explain a little more about this division on ‘Scarsick.’
DG: Usually, I kind of like the division of ‘three’ or ‘five,’ I think that looks better. We’ve had three parts or three chapters, but for this album, it was just so obvious that the division of three would not be following the album because the songs both musically and lyrically were so split in half and also we had the reference of vinyl records through “Disco Queen.” I felt kind of natural to do it like a ‘vinyl album,’ and have ‘side A’ and ‘side B.’ If you look at it musically it’s obvious, we worked with the song flow in different way than we usually had. On the first albums we mixed everything up allot, you would have a fast song, soft song, and then a heavy song after that so that it would continuously change, like a landscape. I kind of like that, it just depends on what kind of album you want to make. But it also will be more complicated for the listener to digest in many ways. So on ‘Scarsick,’ we follow a flow, we start with the aggressive songs and step by step go into “Disco Queen” which is obviously, the weirdest song on the album, then after that you have a strong breaking point, which is also the breaking point where you go from side A to side B, in which you go down to the low key “Kingdom of Loss.” From that point on you have the crescendo and the pressure build up and the breaking point of the album which is “Flame to the Moth” where once again we go into a typical Pain of Salvation ending song, being a little bit more epic.
When you look at it lyrically, you still have that same character from ‘The Perfect Element Part 1,’ where he is lying on the floor, where we left him in 2000. All that first side is him lying on that floor seeing the outside world as seen through television, because there was a television set being on in that same room and all of that is escalating to get the state of mind of that character. His breaking point is “Kingdom of Loss,” which of course is a reference to “King of Loss” from ‘The Perfect Element;’ at that point it was about being someone for whom loss was very crucial and his kingdom. If you are looking at the individual in ‘The Prefect Element’ we are now looking at the individual for ‘Scarsick.’ We are putting more and more pressure on the individual at this point, song by song, we reach his mental breaking point at the end of ‘The Perfect Element’ and his mental breaking point with ‘Scarsick.’ At the end of “Flame to the Moth” we kind of take this machine that we have been building pressure on and drive it off the edge of a cliff so to speak or the roof of a building and we get to fall down with this character in this serene bliss which is the sad point where you know when you have no more decisions to make or any options left. In falling together with that main character we all become that super-decision that is referred to at the beginning of ‘Scarsick.’
TH: Taking a turn more towards the technical aspect of the record, how did you guys record the record, did you swap files over the internet or decide to record at one location?
DG: It was all recorded in my home studio, apart from the drums, which we recorded in another studio, which we recorded in another location because some acoustic things worked better at that location. I never like sending files, I have been involved in projects that involved sending files and for me, I really like ‘Band’s’ bands. Bands that meet up in the rehearsal space just like you did when you were twelve years old where you play together, you spend time together because that will influence the sound of the music that you will create and the level of intimacy that is allowed to seep into the music. All of those personal relations will affect the music. I like having all the people come here to my place and even though it might be an inefficient method, the efficiency of being inefficient will show in the long run.
TH: I have to ask, MTV 2’s ‘Headbanger’s Ball has picked up a lot of melodic metal acts lately for the program and it looks like that channel in general has become a medium for a lot of hard rock acts to be seen, not to mention You Tube and various other channels, are you guys planning on filming a video for a cut off ‘Scarsick.’
DG: The only problem today is that everything has to follow a recipe when it comes to time schedules. Like if you want to make a single, so and so before the album is released, the video should be this kind of video and should be released then and there; otherwise there is no point making it. From a marketing point of view it’s too late, we realty won’t be able to achieve all that because we are going to tour Europe. It is sad in many ways that you have to follow those recipes, but you have to. If you go to a music channel and you want them to broadcast a video they will say, “oh but this album has been out three months now, there is no point in us showing a video.” I definitely want a video; I would love to make a video for “Disco Queen.”
TH: Speaking of video, you did the DVD for the “Be” record, is there any DVD in the works with archival material/interviews, past music videos, or concerts?
DG: We have a lot of shows on film, visually, they are OK, the cameras today are so good but we don’t have good sound recordings to go along with the video. I have seen other bands do that and release the video ‘as is’ and have people pay for it, but in my opinion, that’s not what you want people to pay for, that’s kind of ripping your fans off. And now, not having a full-time member bass player, it feels a bit shaky to record a DVD at this point. I would like to make a DVD that is representative of what Pain of Salvation is normally about, because I love the “Be” DVD, but it’s not our standard type of show so it would be nice to give all those people who have never seen us live a taste of what that is. From all the previous albums we have made videos, so it would also be interesting from our point of view, to release a DVD with archival material and all the videos, but at the same time you have to have something that is ‘the main attraction.’ At some point we will put something out.
TH: Wrapping things up, what else holds the future of Pain of Salvation?
DG: After the European Tour, we have some festivals planned. We want to make the video from ‘Scarsick.’ The main thing at this point is to decide the bass player issue; Simon Anderson is going to follow us on tour and he is on our top list of 'the most interesting bass players' so we just have to decide who to pick and turn into a whole band again.
Copyright 2007: Tommy Hash for Ytsejam.com
CLICK HERE to Tommy Hash’s review of ‘Scarsick’
The Pain of Salvation Official Website
Inside Out Records Link
Inside Out Records at MySpace
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