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an Interview with Johnny Hedlund of Unleashed
by Matt Smith
When Unleashed released Hammer Battalion earlier this year I was completely blown away by how a band that's been around for twenty years can put out something so heavy and fresh sounding, but these Swedish death-metalers easily put out one of the best metal discs of the year, hands down. So, needless to say, I seriously wanted to do an interview with them especially since they were going to be embarking on a US tour with Obituary. So in my hometown of Worcester, where Unleashed had a stop with Obituary for the Rock n Shock weekend at the Palladium, I was able to sit down with lead vocalist/bassist Johnny Hedlund and fire some questions at him and wax nostalgic about death metal days of yore.
GASP: So is this your first time in Worcester?
Johnny: I was trying to figure that out but I'm pretty sure it is, it must be, yeah.
GASP: Because you've never played the Palladium before and that probably would have been the only place you would have played in Worcester.
Johnny: Will there be people from just the city here for the festival?
GASP: Oh there'll be people from everywhere for Rock n Shock this weekend.
Johnny: Is this a small or big city?
GASP: It's pretty big, it's the second largest city in Massachusetts.
Johnny: Oh, okay, I just wasn't sure what the population is.
GASP: I'm not sure either but it's a pretty large population. One cool thing about Worcester is my mother's side of the family is 100% Swedish and they traveled directly from Sweden to Worcester and were part of the first Swedish immigrants here in the early 1800's. And my great grandfather built a lot of the houses in the neighborhood they settled in and also laid the first brick of a church right up the street from the Palladium.
Johnny: Wow, damn.
GASP: Yeah, so just to let you know there's some Swedish heritage in Worcester.
Johnny: Cool! My grandpa's sister, she immigrated from Sweden too and started up a hotel in New Jersey about one hundred years ago in 1905 and she never came back to Sweden, she stayed here. My grandpa still has all the letters he got from her when she came here and it's pretty exciting.
 GASP: That's pretty cool. I have to say I absolutely love Hammer Battalion, to me it's one of the best albums you guys have put out in awhile. It has some of the best playing I've heard from you guys. When I put the disc in I had it cranked and it scared the shit out of me when you scream on the beginning of "The Greatest Of All Lies".
Johnny: That's exactly the effect we wanted and we talked about that and when I buy a new record I make sure it's exactly that level of volume when it starts and it's funny you say that because it's exactly what we talked about. We said maybe we should put a slow or mid-paced song but then we said, no we want to have that effect. You know, right from the start, set the pace right there. We did battle about which song to be first because that's always a problem. Everybody thinks differently in the band but finally we came up with that song. I'm happy you guys said that because I voted for that song. (laughs)
GASP: (laughs) It was a good choice. You have a lot of anti-christian themes on the album like "The Greatest Of All Lies" and "Long Before Winter's Call", I mean in general there seems to be a lot of nihilism within that whole wave of Swedish Death metal. Is that a reaction to how you were raised? I know personally I felt that way because I was raised in a Christian family and taught that the bible was the absolute truth and when I hit like 15 or 16 I pretty much became a nihilist. Do you feel the same way?
Johnny: No, not at all. Actually my dad and my mother don't even know what Jesus Christ is, they could care less. So my grandma and grandpa were probably the only people back home that didn't go to church because they weren't interested and they don't see the advantages of going to church. They don't have anything against Christian people, that's not the issue, but I was not raised like that at all. But the society I live in is Christian and most of the Western world is based on Christian morals and we're raised that way whether we like it or not, it's either that or something else. Our entire law book is written because of what happened long ago when Christianity took over the Western World. So in that respect I don't have anything against Christians, that's not my task in this world, my task is to ask questions and criticize and acknowledge what they would call fact, that is more my task these days and I'm not into throwing darts at Christianity any more, that's not funny any more and I know I did that when I was younger but what I do think is funny is looking into Christianity or Islam for that matter, and take what they say is fact, what they say is correct because then we're talking about politics or science and if we take what they are preaching as science then we want to question that and see if it's correct and that is what I do with many of my lyrics these days, I want to dig into it and see if they are correct. I mean you can put out a very, very simple question to something they call Christmas Eve and in Sweden they call it Yule's Eve because it's got nothing to do with Jesus Christ and if you look in the bible it is very hard to find any evidence at all that Jesus Christ was born even in the Winter time and as a matter of fact if you DO believe in the bible you will see that if Jesus had lived he was probably born around September or October and a lot of the intellectual Christians these days would agree to that. So it is a pretty fuckin' big lie that people still celebrate Christmas Eve on December 25th and for what reason I ask? But I do know the reason that's whywe call the previous album Midvinterblot because the Winter Solstice has always been the reason for the Winter season and that is when the sun turns. All the native tribes long ago had always celebrated the sun even before the VIkings actually, andthe Vikings were people that lived in the cold climate and they needed to celebrate. Even the Mayans celebrated the sun in some fashion and that is done on the 21st or 22nd of December which is what we call the Midvinterblot or the Winter Solstice. And so two or three days after you have Christmas and that's more of like a bonus day, a commercial day as I see it and we probably celebrate it much the same way but it IS a Pagan tradition and has nothing to do with Jesus Christ and it's funny because today a lot of the intellectual Christians would agree to that but only 20 years ago when I grew up nobody would ever agree to that and they would say "of course it's the birthday of baby Jesus and blah-blah" and it was a fact, as much as fire is warm and water is wet (laughs) and its just we're talking like 20-25 years ago and it's things like that that surprise me and it's funny that people go so far to push a lie that they almost believe in it. Because it's science, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to look into these facts. (Anders comes in and asks Johnny in Swedish if he wants a drink). It's nice that people come in and offer me a drink. (laughs) So I hope that answers your question.
GASP: Yeah it does.
 Johnny: But the society I was raised in was quite Christian. I wouldn't say that now because if you came over to Sweden, and compared to America, it would seem like an Atheist country because it's not very Christian in that respect. When I was kid and went to school there was nothing about Odin, Freya, and Thor, nothing, absolutely nothing for eleven years. Now we do read a lot about Buddhism and Islam and Christianity and that's on like every week, a couple hours every week. And it's funny... (Anders comes in and hands Johnny a drink and says "here's some ice water for you with a twist of lime" and Johnny says "thank you darling, would you marry me?" and laughs) ...so I think that's pretty much it and I think we rebelled against some of the things we knew were not correct and it wasn't really rebelling against people too because that's not as interesting, but rebelling against the actual doctrines.
GASP: Your going for the intellectual approach as opposed to burning down churches.
Johnny: Yes, that's an easy thing to do but it's not going to change much.
GASP: No, it doesn't and if anything it only makes the people doing it look stupid.
Johnny: And plus I don't need to spend five years in jail, I don't have that time and it's ridiculous. It's not meaningful and I'm not going to say people are idiots for doing it but I don't have that agenda, that's not my place in the world.
GASP: I agree with you, and all of the Christian holidays are based on Pagan holidays, for example, Easter, Christmas and the reason they did that was so the Pagans could still have their holidays but they were now Christian holidays. It was their way of tricking the Pagans into Christianity.
Johnny: In a way it was a smart marketing move and let's acknowledge the fact that it WAS a marketing move that's what it is, and they were smart in a way because we have to give them credit for the fact that they have pushed this and survived it for 2000 years. In a way it was a smart move.
GASP: They did something right.
Johnny: Yeah, and they took over with force just like any war machine would do if you want to take over something you do it with force. You may not have the right, but you take the right because you have the force. But that's my task, i want to acknowledge that fact and make them say to the world, "yes this is what we did" because we thought it was right. I can't take that away from them, they were obviously stronger at the time. That's why when people burn a church I won't say "you're an idiot" because that is exactly what they did up in Sweden. They burned down the villages and they took prisoners and they owned the places where they had an Odin temple they would burn it down and put a church on top of it. On the exact same spot, it happened many times in Swede, so I can't say that someone's an idiot to want to reverse that today, it's just not MY type of warfare.
GASP: Yeah, that was my point, you're going for the more intellectual approach. Now, aside from the the anti-christian messages in your songs, other songs are steeped in Nordic legends, were you raised with stories of Odin and Thor as a child or was this something you had to explore on your own? Were you raised with parents that believed in the Nordic religion?
Johnny: Well, my father really told me to go out there and do research myself because the school wasn't going to teach meanything. But it was harder in the 80's because there was no internet and you had to go visit a library to get to know anything so it was a little harder back then because today if I want to know something I don't really know I can just look it up on the internet and I can talk to someone on the other side of the planet that had researched something and it saves me five hours..
GASP: Or five DAYS!
Johnny: Exactly, and it's amazing and I really enjoy the new technology in that respect because it's REALLY fast. Plus I can really easily look into how other people might think about something or if they have a different opinion than I have and I can look into and see what their arguments are. And in that way I can really build up something quite fast that I could criticize and break it down. And I might even be wrong I can see that really fast, I was thinking wrong. So I really like the new technology.
GASP: Even though my mom is all Swedish she never ONCE mentioned ANYTHING about the Nordic religion because her parents were Christians...
Johnny: Everybody was back then and if you weren't you would probably be in jail, it wasn't a choice.
GASP: Exactly, so I had to research everything on my own and I said to my mom, "this is so much cooler than Christianity" (laughs) I relate to Thor and Odin, Asgaard, Valhalla, I relate to that much more than anything in the bible. To me the bible is just a book somebody wrote and said " this is the way it's gonna be" we're gonna force everybody to convert. And when I started realizing my roots I said this is why I have such a deep connection to the Nordic and Pagan religion. And I ended up studying Paganism for years and even though I'm not a practicing Pagan I still believe in those ideals and beliefs.
Johnny: I think that is the beauty of it too, there is no book that tells you exactly how to live because it's not meant to be that way. There are obviously books and doctrines from the past like the Edas(?) for example whereas 75% of it is written down by Christians so you can put some trust to it of course but a lot of it has connection to the Christian bible and the Christian belief and the way they respect the world and so on. Sometimes you have to be careful, I've done a lot of research obviously through the years but I just feel that most of it was written down 900 or 1,000 years ago by other Christians who were interested in the old beliefs. But they were Christians in fact and they were inspired by both religions and they wrote it down, but one has to be a bit careful when you research it that you draw your own conclusions. But yeah, I totally agree that all we do in our every day life is more of a Pagan life than it is Christian life but we do respect some of the laws in the fundamental law text. But they would have been the same regardless because nobody would have allowed a religion where you can go out and kill somebody and some of the law texts, or what Christians would call the Ten Commandments, they're pretty normal stuff.
GASP: It's common sense.
Johnny: Exactly, you could call it common sense, period, that's that, so it's not really their idea. I mean they gave a lot of credit to themselves and they live with that it's what their bases are but in the end I wouldn't go home and slap my mother, I mean why would I do that and you don't steal from people, it's common sense. I mean when Christianity came to Sweden a lot of things became different and the church was dominating and they started to take taxes from people. I don't know what the tax system would look like if they didn't start it but its hard to say because at some point if you have a civilized society that's gonna happen anyway. (laughs) Because trade demands a society with taxes and if it's up to everybody then there's anarchy. (laughs)
 GASP: (laughs) I agree. When I first saw Unleashed in 1991 in Boston at the Channel and you were opening for Morbid Angel and Entombed (great fucking show) and I hadn't heard you guys yet because Where No Life Dwells hadn't even been released yet. So I go to the show as mainly a Morbid Angel fan and by the time you guys were done playing I was up at the merch table asking to trade the Morbid Angel sweatshirt for an Unleashed shirt, that's how much you guys impressed me!
Johnny: I won't tell them that! (laughs)
GASP: No, go ahead and tell them! (laughs). I mean you guys just really kicked ass that night and where Morbid Angel has the really fast intricate sutff you guys just rocked the fuck outta that place that night!
Johnny: Yeah, well we try and have more dynamics. It's obvious we don't play fast all the time, it's not meant to be that way. We want to be as catchy as possible. I like listening to that kind of music, I'm not very fond of extremely technical music, I mean I don't mind it, but if I go home from work or when I was younger from school I wanna sing along to somebody's chorus I don't wanna have the technical stuff, I can't remember that.
GASP: That's what we always like about Unleashed, it's not too technical, the riffs are memorable.
Johnny: That's our goal, that's really good to hear. We have like 20 or 30 songs that have to compete with each other and we have to see what ones will be the most memorable for the album. So that's how it works, and if they're not memorable enough we'll pick another 13 or 14 and make them better and stronger so they're more memorable. So it's not always about making good solos or production or all that, the core thing is to make them memorable and catchy because that is the type of music I like listening to myself. I mean I can sing along to any Motörhead song, i know as many Motörhead lyrics as I know Unleashed lyrics. Why? Because they're catchy! They're well done and they're smart and the lyrics are perfect and I just love that. AC/DC and all the older heavy metal bands, they're really good at that. Slayer, you can remember those lyrics for 40 or 50 years for sure! When I'm 65 years old I'll still be singing (sings "Raining Blood" by Slayer).
GASP: I do have to admit I did have to get a lyric sheet for some of the songs on Reign In Blood (laughs)
Johnny: Yeah, of course because it's so fast.
GASP: Especially "Post Mortem", I remember going what the hell is he saying? so I had to find the lyric sheet. (laughs)
Johnny: But the song is so strong you really wanna know.
GASP: Yeah
Johnny: That's another key thing, these songs are so strong you wanna know what the lyrics are.
GASP: Speaking of the tour with Morbid Angel in 1991, how did that tour go for you? That show was your first time in the US right?
Johnny: Oh it was great, it was fantastic, it was our first "real" tour and we did the same tour in Europe with Morbid Angel and it was great. It's where everything started and obviously every fuckin' show was packed and everything just exploded, it was great!
GASP: Awesome. How did you feel about America after that and did it change any perceptions or opinions you had about the US?
Johnny: I don't think so, I just wanted to come back because we had a great time, we had the time of our lives. I called the record label and said, "book it, book it for next year" and that was it and I think we came back with Cannibal Corpse the next year.
GASP: I have to admit I'm a little ashamed because I haven't seen you since 1991...
Johnny: Well, it happens, we had people telling us last year "we haven't seen you since 1992" so it's okay, you don't play every city every time either. This tour we played a lot of new cities, like Worcester for example. Last year we weren't here so...
GASP: About how many US tours have you done since your first?
Johnny: This is the fifth, I think we did 91, 92...
GASP: So I haven't missed THAT many (laughs)
Johnny: No, I think it's 91, 92, 94 or 95 and then it was a big gap until 2007 because our record label just dropped us and they said North America is not a market for death metal and we're like, wow!
GASP: Is that why you're not with them any more?
Johnny: Yes, that's part of the reason, a big part of the reason. They would push it in Europe and they did a good job but we took like 4 or 5 years break from 1997 to 2002 so that didn't matter but in 2002 with a new album and we were like, "look you gotta get your shit together" and they still kept saying "no, we don't believe in North America as a market for death metal" and I said there are a lot of record companies out there that DO! They still believe and I can play for 800 people in New York City or I could do it in London, I mean give me a reason NOT to be in New York or LA or ANY fuckin' city I mean c'mon, they just didn't have the arguments they just didn't want to push it. So we said fine, let's go out and shop around and we had like eight record companies that were interested and SPV were definitely the best one so it was an easy choice. So our manager talked to us and we signed the contract and three days later we started planning the US tour. So last year we were here with Krisiun and Belphegor and did a headline run and I'm sure we're gonna do another headline run next year because they do a good job now and they believe in the band. They don't look at Unleashed like some bad disease that's gonna go over in a few years, I mean I've been around for 20 years and I'm sure I'll be here for 20 years more it's not something I just do for a couple years. And that's what pissed me off about Century Media, they didn't look at it in the long perspective. You have to invest a little to get it back thats how it works, if you drop something for this many years you gotta rebuild somehow. I mean we wouldn't have to rebuild in Europe, because we always sell a lot of records there but we will have to rebuild here in the US before we can be a little bigger here, so thats the name of the game.
GASP: Yeah, in the US you're always going to have that core audience, you know people like me.
 Johnny: Yeah, and the audiences are younger and the only thing different in Europe is the number of record sales and that is only because we haven't been here in so many years. It takes a couple of years to get to that level, but the crowds are the same. People know us and we have a great singalong crowd and I don't have a problem, it's just Century Media had a problem. They were looking at other types of music and they were probably tired of Death Metal...
GASP: They kind of transitioned away from a lot of their Death Metal bands.
Johnny: They have a few more now I guess but they sound a little different, you can hear a lot of Iron Maiden influences, so I mean it's not PURE Death metal any more, but they do have Krisiun and I give them credit for that. But I guess for many years they just weren't interested and it didn't work for us because we were like the US is probably one of our biggest markets in the world and we're not going there. I mean I have tons of mail from fans in the US wondering why they can't see us live and I had no answer and I kept blaming the record label but that doesn't work, I had to do something. No we have a much better situation, I know for a fact we will keep touring every year it's not a problem any more, SPV is great to us, it's not a problem.
GASP: Well, I'll probably be there every year then, making up for all the time lost. (laughs)
Johnny: Right (laughs)
GASP: Are you considered famous in Stockholm? Basically, if you walk down a street in Stockholm do you have people recognize and stop you and say hi?
Johnny: Well, not like in Germany. I mean in Sweden, obviously if you're into heavy metal you'll probably know who I am, even if you don't like the band you probably recognize me. It's a little bit different of course, we played one show in Stockholm last year and it was the first one in 12 years. I like coming home and just being myself but we did that show there last year and it was packed, it sold out and I could tell the kids were like "what the fuck, why haven't you played here in such a long time?" so everybody was there and we sold more merchandise than I've sold in like 15 years. I knew there was a bizarre demand and we just had to do it. It's still not Iron Maidenish level you know. (laughs) I'm happy that way because I don't have people hanging outside my door. There are metal bars in Stockholm and obviously if I go in there someone is gonna recognize me, but that's cool.
GASP: You've done covers of "Breaking the Law" and "Countess Bathory" on your past albums, besides Judas Priest and Venom what else did you listen to growing up that influenced you to play this music?
Johnny: Well, Venom, Celtic Frost, obviously the early American bands like Autopsy, Death, Morbid Angel, Xecutioner, Rottrevore, they were a huge influence that's where Death Metal started, the tape trading days. I still have a lot of those demo tapes.
GASP: Yeah, these were bands we played back on our radio show in 1990, 91.
Johnny: When I traded tapes with US bands it was like 86-87 I wasn't even in Nihilist back then and I was really fascinated by the fact that people could put out a cassette of music like that and the police didn't come out (laughs) so that's what we said in Sweden, shit we gotta do that, it's brutal! I joined Nihilist in 87 and I could hardly play bass and I started learning you know. It was really nice, that's how it started.
GASP: Yeah, I was talking to David Blomqvist fro Dismember about the Nihilist days.
Johnny: Yeah, he was always in Dismember, and we used to go see each others concerts and be in the front headbanging. There were like 50 people in the whole city into that so we all knew each other.
GASP: Are there any new bands you like?
Johnny: Well, I think the best albums that have come out are by bands that have been around awhile. The new Belphegor I think is great, I like the new Marduk, they've been around for quite some time, the new Grave and Dismember albums are great of course. Grand Magus are another more regular heavy metal act that just put out a great album. It's a little harder to find a band that's only been around for a few years. I get like 20 or 30 promo CDs every other month and I used to listen to at least the first song on each to see if it was something I would keep listening to but it's still mostly bands that have been around for awhile and every band has a history and sometimes it takes awhile before you make a good record. Some people will always say your first record was the best one but I'm happy because a lot of people are telling us our last two are the best and that's really good to hear because that means we're doing the right thing. I mean in 1991-92 when things exploded it was so new and fresh that anybody that came out with a death metal record would be a hero. Because you were doing something that society didn't like at all. So it was like us against them so it really didn't matter if it was an amazing record if you were death metal then you were in the family and you got celebrated just because of that.
GASP: And people just eat it up, there's so many bands in the extreme metal world that aren't even that great but they have a decent following because that scene is so dedicated.
 Johnny: That's what happened in the Black Metal scene, it just exploded because it was new and fresh, even though it had been around with Venom and Bathory it was still amazingly fresh in 97-98 and things just started to explode and the younger kids had no idea what Venom was about and for them that was the first Black Metal stuff. It was exactly what happened with the Death Metal scene and the strong will survive and come out with another great record and will play a few festivals here and there and tour a little bit and that's just the name of the game. We can all look back on our collections and see bands that are still here like Motörhead and AC/DC.
GASP: Yeah, the new Motörhead is fuckin' great!
Johnny: Yeah it's amazing, we opened up for them in Germany and I'm like backstage with my beer watching them and it was like I was 16 years old again, they're still good! And Lemmy must be fuckin' 400 years old and he's still going! (laughs) We bumped into him in LA just a few weeks ago at his favorite pub in LA, The Rainbow, and it was like "oh there's Lemmy, of course he's there drinking his whiskey!" (laughs) They're just strong, they know how to make good songs. And to them it was not just about the fast buck, it was about the way of life. And the new AC/DC, I'm not even gong to listen to it to decide, I'm just going to buy it because I know it's going to be good. Its not a question of is it going to be good, it's more a question of how long is it? (laughs) It's AC/DC, how bad can it be?
GASP: AC/DC was my second concert ever, the Flick of the Switch tour in 1983 right next door at the Centrum (now the DCU). It was a life changing experience for me!
Johnny: I still have a poster of AC/DC in my office back at home. AC/DC and Motörhead were the first records I ever bought back in 1981 and back then we didn't know it could get any more brutal than that (laughs) we thought that was the end of the world, how much worse can it get? (laughs) I think it started back with the glam scene, it wouldn't have gotten more brutal without the glam scene because it was a reaction, that's when thrash metal started. Metallica, and it was like what the hell. You know, I don't want to paint my toenails (laughs) that's not me man! When Metallica, Testament, Kreator, all came out that was the start of it.
GASP: I agree. To wrap this up because you guys are going on stage in less than an hour or so the last question is, since GASPetc.com is half horror and half metal, are there any horror movies that are your favorites?
Johnny: I will have to say the classic is Evil Dead, not to say it's an amazing movie but that's how shit started, you know, Cannibal Holocaust, crazy stuff like that, this question should be asked to Anders, he's got a fucking library of movies back at home, he's sick, he's got all of them and that's where I get MY stuff from. (laughs)
GASP: Sweet, thanks for taking the time and we'll see you on stage very shortly!
Johnny: Thanks, cheers!
Matt and Johnny - Separated at birth?
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