PETER TÄGTGREN FROM HYPOCRISY
TM - This is Amelia and Elizabeth, and we are here with Peter from Hypocrisy. Thank you for having this interview with us today, we really appreciate it.
PT – Hey, thank you for having me. I hope you guys are doing great.
TM - Hope you are ok too. So, what's been happening with you?
PT – For the last 1 1/2 years nothing, a vacation for me to recharge my batteries, also a lot of fixing of things that I have laying around that I didn't have any energy or time to finish. Now all my tasks are done I'm pretty happy now I'm back to zero.
TM - That's awesome! I also saw you played brutal assault and Alcatraz, how was that?
PT - It was great to be back out again, a little rusty but other than that it's great to play for people again. That's the energy you need to get fed to keep on going, you can't just sit inside and keep on writing music, you need to go and get the energy from the people, that vibration feeds me a lot.
TM - What can fans expect from your new album Worship that comes out on the 26th of November?
PT - I don't know, you tell me. I'm just so far into it it's hard to have a different perspective on it. I would say it sounds more Hypocrisy then ever, you've got all the elements you need, you've got a fat production. My only aim was just to make good songs.
TM - What was your writing and recording process?
PT - It's been spread out over 3 years because I have been so busy with everything. We did a little bit here, a little bit there. So, in general, if you took all the time and squeezed it all together, the writing and recording process for us took a bit longer because I was so busy with Pain and Lindemann and with Hypocrisy. We came down to Australia in 2019, first time in 30 years, we finally found people we could work with so hopefully it's going to be a natural thing to come back once in a while and as soon as all this madness slows down.
TM - Yeah definitely, and you also went to Japan, did you like it?
PT - First time we went to Japan was in 2002, I've been there a few times I really liked it too. If you're a Scandinavian guy coming to Australia it's a big difference, and Japan too. If you're going there, it's a big difference. It's great going out to see things and doing things you would never do if you had a normal job, you've got to have a big wallet if you're going to go around the world like we have done for the past 30 years.
TM - What was your favourite thing in Japan? Was there something that stood out?
PT - I like the people, I like this food, that pretty much says it's all. It's nice and clean it's what you want, I like the culture, and everything is really special there.
TM - Yeah one of my favourite things in Japan was the robot restaurant, I don't know if you went to it.
PT – No, I didn't see that one.
TM - You have to go next time you're there, it's just a show it's crazy I can't even describe it. I've never seen anything like it in my life, but you must go to the robot restaurant. Another place in Japan is called Teamlab, it's this maze and it's got a bean bag room, and a projector room where you lie down, and a ball room it's the coolest thing ever.
PT - Is that in Tokyo or a different city?
TM - I think there up to five Teamlabs.
PT – I’ll look for it next time
TM - I love your album cover, the spaceships and the temples are amazing, can you tell us who designed it and the meaning behind it?
PT - It was just an idea I had in 2018 or something like that. I drew it down on a napkin in a hotel in LA because I had this idea. I was lying in bed ready to go to sleep and suddenly, this idea pops up, and I was like wow that would be cool to have as a cover. I drew it down on a napkin and sent it over to my friend from nuclear blast in America Gerardo. He helped me develop it so I could get it the way I wanted it through this guy called Jake who did a fantastic job.
TM - Yeah, it's really cool!
PT - Yeah and the first song on the album is what you see on the cover. My theory is, we were planted here thousands and thousands of years ago. I think these people are beings that have been around for millions of years, doing studies of things they plant here and see how it grows and see how it destroys themselves. I think they were a major part of the Mayan people who disappeared out nowhere, there's no trace of them or anything. They came back, collected them, and took them wherever they wanted, and then they started with the humans to plant them and see how they go. In the last 200 years they changed our DNA, so we got a little bit smarter, but not too smart, because then we start getting out in space and fucking up the rest of the universe like we do on earth. So, I think they try to keep us dumbed down, like I said I think it's a big experiment.
TM - Your son helped you write a song in this album so that's pretty cool, could you tell us about it?
PT – Absolutely, he wrote Dead World, that was a song from his and my project that we had on the side. He got out some death metal riffs, he is a fantastic drummer, superfast with his blasts and stuff like that so we were just maintaining that things and suddenly, we had 11 songs, and we said we either put vocals on this or we scrap it. He said like “let's do something else” and we scrapped it and put it on ice. Dead world was one of the songs we got to release, this song It's so cool and I asked “is it ok if we put it on the hypocrisy album and write some lyrics to it?” and he said “yeah sure! No problem!” I mean he's no stranger to writing music, he wrote Mathematik for Lindemann, he wrote Soldier of Fortune off the last Hipocrisy album when he was 14 or 15, so the kid is good let's put it that way.
TM - He is, he seems really talented.
TM - You also released your song for Chemical Whore, it's an interesting video and the song touches on how pill consumption has increased in societies. Can you tell us more about that?
PT - It was one of those things, these lyrics are very old, so when people say it's an antivax song, get a fucking clue. You know I wrote these lyrics in the beginning of 2019, we did the video in September 2019, so it has nothing to do with any covid. It's just the consumption of pills and stuff we put in our bodies that we really don't need, and how the big pharma is controlling the addiction of everybody and everything. I think it was interesting to write about.
TM – I agree, the text at the beginning of the video makes you think about how much we consume in society compared to what it was.
PT - There's a lot of things for ADD, ADHD, and depression, you name it. I think sometimes we overdo it.
TM - You have done a cover of The Beatles; are there any other bands you want to cover?
PT - Right now I have no clue to be honest, right now is just a focus on the hypocrisy stuff, you never know. There’re so many good songs out there that you feel like you want to make a contribution to because you love it so much but let's see what we do in the future for Pain you know.
TM - So what's happening with Pain?
PT - For me it's a good time to sit and write while I do promotion for hypocrisy. There's really nothing going on because you can't go out on tour so I will use my time, and I feel like I have time to sit and write some stuff for the next Pain album when hypocrisy has finished touring every corner of the Earth, then bam here we go again with pain if it works. I don't have a crystal ball but that's what I'm hoping for it all. It depends on what my mood is, I can't write music when I'm in a bad mood, it has to be perfect conditions in my life. Some people say when artists are in deep shit and feeling bad they write the best songs ever but I can't just concentrate when I feel like shit.
TM - Have you ever considered touring with Pain and Hypocrisy together?
PT - I don't know, I mean King Diamond did it with Mercyful Fate, but for me it's like hello and then one hour later hello again. There's no excitement, it's just me in different forms, I've done some festivals where I've done both bands, but the first day I played for Hypocrisy and the second day I have played for Pain. I don't know to be honest if there's any need for that.
TM - If you could have any band play one of your songs; what band would it be, what song, and in your style or their style?
PT - I have no clue to be honest, I have never thought about that
TM - What's your favourite memory of watching someone else perform live, can you tell us a story?
PT - We went to this amusement park when I was 6 years old in Stockholm, the biggest amusement park and they always have live bands playing there. I think that was really the first time I saw a live show, when I was 6 years old. I think it was Status Quo that was playing there at the time, and it just blew my mind, it was like this is what I want to do, and it never changed after that. In school I was always there and never present, I was just daydreaming all the time and some things like that. I wanted to be a rockstar when I was a kid.
TM - look and now you’re a rockstar.
PT - I wouldn't say that, but now I'm doing what I enjoy and what I hate. It's a love hate thing to be an artist for me, from anything to writing songs, and producing them, and recording them it's nothing that you do in a day or two or on a weekend. It’s a process, especially when you're by yourself it is difficult to get the ideas out right away. You have to do the melody that you had in mind first, and then you have to put music around it and see if it works. It's a big process, instead of you standing in a practicing room with four or five people. You try things, figure out the best way of doing things in the studio. When you are by yourself, you have to redo, redo, and redo, so it's a curse to write music and get it the way you have it in your mind.
TM - Anything else you want to say to your fans?
PT - I hope everyone enjoys the album! There is a new single coming out on Friday, and I really hope we can come down and visit you guys again now we have finally had some good contacts that can bring us over. It took 27/28 years for the band to show up.