The first release had this controversy, but we managed to get the album released in Germany anyway. JB: I don’t know if I should cry or laugh… nowadays I laugh more and more about it, since I’m getting used to it. MB: Pär also told me that your first album was, at first, not allowed in Germany, since you were accused of Nazism. For example, when we told the story of the Swedish empire on Carolus Rex, they were like “ Wow! Man, we didn’t know this!”. It was strange to non Swedish people to hear about it. JB: Every nation wants to promote, their heroes, but it’s much tougher for countries where English is quite a new language. MB: And because of that it’s hard for people who don’t speak the native languages to learn about these things. Since I can’t read Polish at all, we did some research online, but it’s still hard to find details, especially on events that took place in Eastern Europe, due to censoring from the Soviet Union. It’s a really crazy story.Of course, it’s well-known in Poland. JB: Many people come to us and say “ We have the best heroes! Sing about our country!” One guy was actually pretty cocky and said “ There are many war heroes, but this guy is probably one of the top three you’ve ever heard of!” he was talking about Witold Pilecki, who volunteered to go to Auschwitz for two years to collect evidence. I guess you can see that too when these kids come to you and ask you to cover a specific topic. MB: I’ve talked with fans that say that they’ve actually grown more interested in history because of the way in which Sabaton presents these stories. We had to do research and check facts, and through that writing process my interest in these topics grew. Things got more interesting for us through that. We started to write about war about 10 years ago. The most important thing is what these men did to deserve their place in the history books.
I always wondered “ why the fuck should I remember on what date this Swedish king died?!.” I still think that it’s more important to understand and remember the “whats” and the “whys” than the specific dates. Although I think that you need to have a basic level of interest at first, I was not very interested in history when in school. MB: Pär mentioned that although he had some interest in history when he was in school, most of the interest appeared after he realized that it was kind of a fun thing to write about. The last song on this album, for example, (“Hearts of Iron”) was taken from the book Endgame, by David Strafford, it’s about the final battle in Berlin, and was given to me by a fan. People send us their ideas to us or talk to us after concerts. In both Coat of Arms and Heroes, at least half the stories we present we got from our fans. Although many of them point to the same hero or the same battle, we definitely have a huge catalog to choose from. JB: Oh yeah! I still don’t know how many we got, but we have a lot.
MB: When I interviewed Pär (Sundström, bass guitarist) he mentioned that you have a big list of topics to choose from, as a result of asking your fans for ideas for songs. It’s important that we don’t keep doing the same thing over and over again, so I hope this new focus will keep things a little more interesting for us and that people will enjoy it. This is very interesting for me, since I love to tell stories with music. We’re still singing about historical events and war, but this time we’re focusing on the personal or human side of things, paying attention to individuals or smaller groups. Joakim Brodén: It’s a bit of a different concept this time out. Metal Blast: Tell me about Heroes, your new album. “We tell the story from the soldier’s point of view”
Just as we prepare for the release of Heroes, the band’s newest effort, we met with Joakim Brodén, the founder, singer and (on-and-off) keyboardist of this Swedish ensemble, who was more than happy to tell us more about what’s come.Īnd don’t forget to check out our review of Heroes! While I had enjoyed their previous records, it wasn’t until 2012’s Carolus Rex that I truly started to pay attention to them.
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