And here rest of Pt. 1 / Hier der Rest von teil 1
Although I felt disappointed at first I have to admit that “Skyshaper”
is a real grower. Especially the second half of the album contains some
brilliant moments like “Spindrift”, “Greather than the Sun” or the album
closer “The World Is Growing Loud”. It takes a while to discover the
beauty of it.
Montelius: “That’s what I said before, the album will grow. Especially
“The World Is Growing Loud” is a very special song. By the way, Eskil
recorded the basic rhythm patterns with a little toy drum kit for kids.
We had it re-recorded with a professional drummer but that sounded shit
and didn’t work at all. So we used the initial sounds of the toy kit and
Eskil worked four days on it to pump it up. You see, it’s again trial
and error and just about catching the right moment. And “The World Is
Growing Loud” has perhaps the saddest lyrics I ever wrote. Its working
title was “The Death Song” – not about the death of a specific person
but rather the death of Covenant! There was a time last year when I
thought our band will be no longer…”
A quite scaring thought! What did you make think that??
Montelius: “Well, many things. As you most probably know our label K2
was closed by EMI in the middle of the promotion for the “Bullet”
single. And there was acertain internal strugglle within the band. Not
the happiest times! So I’m quite happy to sit here and promote a new
Covenant album!”
Yes, I remember that I thought that with “Northern Light” and the
accompanying singles Covenant would take totally off and have the sort
of success your peers VNV Nation and Apoptygma Berzerk now enjoy with
their latest releases. The album was a succes but not exactly the
success I suspected.
Montelius: “Yeah! And we as a band thought the same. You know, for
“Northern Light” we had such a big promotional support and a bigger
budget than everyone else from this scene before! I think only bands
with big names like Depeche Mode get this kind of budget and promotional
support but not bands from our scene. Everything seemed to be up for the
big thing. We had a high budget video for “Bullet”, we had big names
remixing our singles, an impressive promotional campaign and all that.
And last but not least an album we were quite proud of! But it all
collapsed and the “Bullet” single did get nowhere. Many fans even had a
hard time to find the various formats of the single. Well, the thing was
simply that the management of EMI changed and they had strictly to save
their expenses. And they said ‘well, we have this little band from
Sweden called Covenant, and EMI has already spent 500,000 Euros on them
last year, so we’re gonna sack them and close the sublabel K2’. Which
was stupid because the 500,000 Euros have been spent anyway. So they
just prevented that the fruits of hard work and a lot of money spent
could be harvested. It was just damn stupid! But it wasn’t my money
after all.”
This must have been a quite frustrating situation for a band!
Montelius: “Yes, at first we felt totally frustrated and let down.
Imagine you are at a horse race and you get all the insider’s
information that this specific horse will definitely win the race. You
have big meetings and all that, and you are sure that this horse will
win as really everything hints at it. And the horse is doing great at
the race – but shot by the jockey on the brink of the target mark! It
was like that, and EMI was the jockey. EMI did not only shot the horse
but also 14 people who worked hard for K2 and our band. Of course we
felt totally disillusioned and frustrated. But only at first, though.
After a while I was happy that this big commercial breakthrough and the
big mainstream success didn’t happen.
Why that?
Montelius: “Well… I just finished reading the Depeche Mode biography,
and I think we might have went through something similar as Depeche Mode
after the huge success of ‘Violator’ and especially ‘Songs Of faith &
Devotion’. Of course not as extreme, and in terms of commercial success
Depeche are obviously a different category. But something similar. I’m
stunned anyway how similar Covenant and Depeche Mode are when it comes
to the internal structure of both bands and the persons involved. You
know, I see Clas (Nachmanson) a little bit like Flecth from Depeche
Mode. Both do not contribute that much musically – although Clas perhaps
contributes a little more than Fletch – but both are essential for their
respectve bands. Both Fletch and Clas are holding things together for
their bands; and without Clas there would be no Covenant anymore. You
see, Eskil and me are not people who care a lot about the financial side
of things. If I have money, I spent it. If I don’t I’m still happy.
Eskil is probably even worse [laughs]. Clas is the one who is taking
care of business things and he is also a trouble-shooter. We always have
had a lot of arguments about the creative aspects of Covenant. Clas is
the one who helps us to come to terms before we get lost on the way. I’m
happy that Clas is with us. And Eskil, he’s a bit like Martin Gore.
Eskil is very very creative, all the time, but also quite eccentric and
sometimes he doesn’t speak much. Just like Gore, if I can believe what
the Depeche bio says. So, the parallels between the two bands are
amazing when you take a look how they work internally. I really could
identify with Depeche Mode a lot while reading the book. Musically there
are huge differences but the personal relationships involved are
stunningly similar.
So you’re happy that the mega-success didn’t come with “Northern Light”
as you may have went a similar route like Depeche Mode in 1993/94?
Montelius: “Well, as I said not as extreme as them most probably. But we
could have ended in a situation where success would have destroyed us.
There were some signs of it, and reading the Depeche bio just confirmed
that. It was a funny situation after all. Do you know this cartoon where
a rocket is ready to take off to the moon? With all the steam and energy
released and then nothing happens except that the top of the rocket
falls off to the ground? It was a little like that. We had the potential
to go to the moon, that didn’t happen. And after all we are quite happy
that we are still on the ground, releasing a new album we’re happy with
on a new label and so on. Our band had a very problematic time after our
last album but now we feel pretty confident and comfortable. With all
those experiences we’ve made we are ready for the next adventures.
Part II coming soon!
In Part II Joakim Montelius will reveal what people can expect from
Covenant’s forthcoming headliner tour, what happened to the cancelled
single “Beat the Noise” and talks about the 20th anniversary of the
band, the meaning of the title “Skyshaper” and much more!
Dienstag, 16. April 2024, 11:12 UTC+2
Zitat
Original von Claudia
Sind zwar noch 2-3 Tippfehler drin, wie ich grad entdeckt hab, aber es ist ja lesbar, gelle? 
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