Entombed A.D.

Swedish juggernaut that is Entombed A.D. start their Australian tour this week which promises to be bruising encounter. Entombed A.D’s legacy goes all the way back to 1987 when the band was originally formed under the name Nihilist. The band changed their name to Entombed in 1989 establishing themselves as masters of Swedish death metal whilst continuing to evolve their sound to what it is today. Entombed A.D released their first album Back To The Front under the new name in 2014 and following it up it in 2016 with Dead Dawn. Hi Fi Way: The Pop Chronicles got to speak to the legendary LG Petrov about the tour.

How you are you?
Not too bad, I’ve finally managed to catch a cold though!

Is that from too much touring?
I think just a product from being home actually, we haven’t played a show in a month or so maybe it is the craving for touring coming back again.

Do you usually get a bit twitchy around nine ‘clock on the nights you aren’t playing knowing that when you’re on the road you would be hitting the stage at this time?Yeah, yeah! It is nice to be home though for a week or so after a tour but then you feel the need to go back out again.

Are you looking forward to bringing Dead Dawn to Australia?
Hell yes! It has been a while, you could say that! I don’t remember the last time we were in Australia, maybe it was 1998 or something or the beginning of 2000. The years go by really fast but I’m happy that we managed to get this tour down in such short notice.

Have you been happy with how the album Dead Dawn has been received?
Yeah, it is going to be fun to see what the reaction is going to be when we come down there and it has been a good run. We can play almost every song off it but we have our favourites or the ones we know that work live. Looking back we have a vast back catalogue of songs and I can imagine a lot of people will want us to play old songs as well which is what we will do of course.

Do you think these new songs have taken on a new lease of life in a live sense?
Er, yeah of course! They are live and bound to sound a little bit different. I don’t think playing live should sound exactly like the album or then we could just bring the album down and put it on and mime to it! Of course it sounds a little bit different, more intense maybe when you stand there and head bang. Hopefully there’s a head banging crowd there as well! I think these songs are a little bit faster live because you get the adrenalin going. We have been playing a lot over the last year and we have never lost focus and it is always unique. Some nights can be better than others but it is still a show and you still have to give it one hundred percent.

Have all the legal issues with the use of the Entombed name been resolved?
Not really, we don’t waste our energy thinking about that. That works in its own dimension and while that is going on we’ll keep touring and making new music and doing what we should be doing.

Has much thought been given to what you might do on the next album?
Yeah, now that we have been home for a while we don’t generally waste time. We have been sending ideas back and forth to each other to keep it alive. There’s some great riffs coming in and we don’t have a rehearsal space at the moment so we’ll have to set up in someone’s home to record stuff rather than letting the ideas pile up. In the very near future we’ll start making some new songs.

Does that excite you making new songs?
Every new album is like a new beginning and we’re just happy that we’re going to be able to do that again. Every album is a new start and we’ll just keep on going. We’ll keep working at our own pace and sometimes an album can take five years to make and sometimes it can take six months. I don’t think you want to put out albums too frequently either but we’ll keeping working out our own pace and people will have to accept that.

Is the rest of 2017 focussed mostly on touring?
Yep, we’ll start working on a new album so we will have it ready but it would be a little stressful if it came out this year because it would have only been eighteen months since the last album. Maybe it might come out early 2018. It would be nice to come to Australia more frequently but until then we’ll keep touring here and we have the summer festivals coming so there’s a lot to do…

Interview by Rob Lyon

The Australian tour dates include…