Hammerfall

Those Swedish purveyors of power metal Hammerfall have been churning out epic anthems for well over a decade, and June 27th saw the release of their latest and great compilation Masterpieces".

Guitarist Oscar Dronjak took a time out from slaying dragons to give us this interview…

Interview w/ Oscar (Guitar/Vocals)

Hammerfall (Sweden)

By Cameron Chambers

Hey mate, how’s it going? 

Fine thanks man, sorry about being

late though. I think the times have been too short for the interviews.

How are you? 

I’m really good man.

Where are you calling from today? 

I’m in Stockholm, Sweden at

my brother’s. I’m down here visiting him and his family, which is

nice.  

Makes for a bit of a change

then, normally you guys are on the road. 

Ha ha. No, we are not going to

be doing more than one show this summer so we can focus on the next

record! There will be no gigs, ha ha.  

You guys are off the road at

busy?  

Too little man, ha ha. I haven’t

really been busy in the last couple of months… definitely not as busy

as I should be. I should be writing songs!  

It’s starting to get closer

to our deadline but I’m the kind of guy that lets things get too close

to our deadline and then I realise I have tons of work to do, so I have

to really start on the writing! 

For those that aren’t familiar

how you got together etc… 

Certainly. We started in the early

nineties playing music that no one else was doing at the time. It was

uncool to play heavy metal but we didn’t really care because that’s

what we wanted to do. No one really liked the grunge movement anyway,

ha ha so we started as a reaction to that.  

We started and got a record deal

and then we released the album in 1997 and then um, it sort of took

off immediately from that point, ha ha. The label believed in us and

promoted us really well in Germany so when the album came out the hype

was believed! 

People understood that it was

something new… whether you liked it or not didn’t matter because

it was different from all the hard and dark music at the time. That

really started things off for us and we continued building from there,

just making sure that we were taking small steps all the time and refining

our sound and just trying to find a good way to work and never compromise

any of our ideals.  

Your long-term guitarist Stefan

will have an affect on the Hammerfall sound? 

I’m one hundred percent sure

it will. He was a very important part of Hammerfall, both playing wise

and all the solos that he did. The new guy Pontus is completely different

so it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment to get in tune with him

and for he and I to play on the same wavelength.  

When it comes to the solos and

the way Pontus does things will definitely be an adjustment for both

Hammerfall and myself. It’s for the best though… we’ve been in

the game long enough to know what we’re doing so whatever happens

won’t be negative… only positive!  

How did you guys come to select

as a player or will he be a part of the song writing process? 

I’m sure he’ll be writing

some stuff but we haven’t really gotten to that point yet. I’m sure

he’ll be involved though… hang on, what was the first part of your

question, ha ha? 

Ha ha, how did you guys actually

find Pontus? 

Andreas, our drummer, has known

him for fifteen years and he already knew him really well… we all

knew him to some extent too because we toured with The Poodles (Pontus

former band) for six weeks last year. He’s a really nice guy with

lots of connections and everybody likes him so that’s why we started

thinking that maybe he would know some good guitar players in 

Stockholm… coz I’m from Gothenburg and have no idea about Stockholm,

ha ha.  

We called him and asked if he

knew anyone who’d fit Hammerfall and he said “yeah, I do… me”!

We tried three guitar players and two of them were people we thought

would work but Pontus was easily the best choice. He has a lot more

to add to the sound of Hammerfall… he’s not trying to change our

sound but he will add to it!   

Speaking of song writing, your

idea of when can we expect your next original album? 

Not a rough idea… I have a precise

date for you! February 20^th, 2009, ha ha. This is how we

always do it. We choose a date then we count backwards and work out

how long we’ll need to do everything and what we need to do to record.

So we’ll start in August and aim for our February release.  

“Masterpieces” is scheduled

for a June 27^th release, an album that features

songs you’d be playing? 

The thing with the covers record

is it features all the covers that we’ve already recording during

our career. There are three new songs on there as well but the covers

have all been –pre-recorded throughout our career. We had one on our

first album in 1996, then 1997 and in 1998 as well.  

They’ve been spread through

our whole career and they were all good choices at that point… definitely

good ideas at the time, ha ha! Some of the songs were chosen because

we loved the bands and we thought the band didn’t have enough of a

spotlight on them, so we thought we’d bring them back to pay tribute

to them.  

Other songs like “Head Over

Heels” were recorded specifically for the Dio tribute album but we

chose songs that we loved and knew that we could do well… but just

wanted a bit of a twist on them. 

Are your cover versions going

Hammerfall once over? 

We haven’t changed anything

coz we want to pay tribute to the songs…. Not just the bands! There’s

no arrangement changes or anything like that. 

There are two different schools

of thought on this. I believe in order to do the songs justice then

you need to play them similar to the original. I mean, we’re not Warlord

so it’s going to sound like Hammerfall, but we don’t want to change

them too much.  

We used to cover songs that were

so obscure that people thought they were Hammerfall songs, ha ha.  

“Masterpieces” also has

2007. What kind of stuff is on there? Any tour hijinks?  

They will be two different releases

that will be packaged together in some countries, but I’m not sure

about Australia.  

From my point of view I think

the DVD is the main release because the songs on the CD have already

been released in one way or another. The DVD is totally new and was

recorded on our own cameras and shows the stuff that we’ve done over

the last six years. It will also have a ninety-minute documentary and

we’ll talk about the stuff on the DVD and some stuff that isn’t

on the DVD, ha ha. It’s basically interviews mixed in with personal

footage.  

There’s also another ninety

minutes of bonus material with TV performances, all the promotional

clips we’ve ever done, as well as four live songs and a collage and

some short movies that we did ourselves. We basically collected everything

we’ve done between 2002 and 2007 and put it on one release. The CD

is fun but it’s more of a collector’s thing but the DVD is the main

release because it shows the band how we really are. We didn’t work

on the covers album but we worked really hard on the DVD! 

Will you guys be playing many

of the cover songs on your one off summer show? 

I’ve done a couple of interviews

today and that question actually came up in another one. We’ve never

thought about doing one of the covers live but it’s a good idea. I’m

going to bring it up and talk to the others about it.  

That one off show I mentioned

is a week before the release of the album so it makes sense to play

a cover song. We’ll see! That’s a really good idea though, thanks

for that man! 

No worries mate. After that

one off show, what touring plans do Hammerfall have for the near future? 

We still want to grow as a band

and keep going forward and upwards. We have to tour a lot more once

the album is released but I don’t know what the plans are yet because

if we tour in March or April then we’ll miss all the summer festivals. 

So what we might do is play some

bigger shows in spring and then do all the festivals across the summer

and then do our own tour in winter. It’s about a year away though

so we haven’t decided yet, ha ha.  

I’m sure you’ve been asked

got a lot of fans down here! 

If all goes well it will be in

2009. We were actually on our way to Australia in 2007 and we had a

couple of offers that we more or less wanted to do, but then the promoter

changed it to another month and we weren’t able to do it. We even

had a schedule for Australia laid out!  

I can’t promise anything coz

I’m not the one that decides all these things but I’m sure Hammerfall

will be in Australia in 2009! 

We’ve got time for a quick

final five questions too mate…

Sure! 

Favourite place you’ve travelled

to?  

So far I would probably say Japan.

It’s so different from anything in Europe… its just world’s apart.

In a good way of course. I liked it very much in Japan! 

This might sound like a suck up

but if Australia is anything like I’ve heard then that’ll be my

favourite… and I’m not just saying that coz you’re from Australia,

I really mean it!  

Favourite album at the moment? 

At the moment? I’ve been doing

some research for the album we’re recording so I’ve started listening

to the entire Judas Priest catalogue again… from first right through

to the last record! I recently did the same thing with the KISS catalogue.  

It’s really cool, I’ve listened

to their albums a billion times but it’s been quite interesting to

go from the start to the finish and get a feel for how the band changed.  

Most ridiculous thing you’ve

done for a buck? 

Weird question! I don’t know.

I’ve done a lot but I never get paid, ha ha. 

I always do ridiculous stuff when

I’m in the mood for it but money isn’t really involved. I think

that’s a cultural thing. Money’s not a big deal here in Sweden but

Americans think about that kind of thing a lot… and there’s nothing

wrong with that, but they have a financially focused mind. We don’t

think like that in Sweden!  

Best hangover remedy? 

Sex, no better cure man. 

Good answer. Thanks for your time Oscar, is there

anything else you’d like to say? 

No, not really. We really hope

we can get to Australia though because it’s one of the countries that

I’ve wanted to visit since I was a teenager and I never got around

to it… I’d never even travelled before Hammerfall! I’ve been fortunate

to go places that I otherwise wouldn’t have.  

The metal scene in Australia

seems to be picking up a lot of speed at the moment too, so we can’t

wait.  

Thanks again mate.