Mikael Stane of DARK TRANQUILLITY / THE HALO EFFECT is a beloved artist, admired for his real passion for music and his touch with the Metal fans. THE GALLERY Web Magazine had the chance to talk with him face to face, in an interview different from all the others! Being the “Godfather” of our page, he had many things to say, concerning his career but also for the Metal community in total…
– Hello Mikael and thank you for talking at THE GALLERY’s Web Magazine for the first time! How do you feel knowing that there exists a Metal Web Magazine and a huge Metal community with a name inspired from the album you created?
Mikael Stanne: It’s awesome! I was 19 back then. It’s cool to see how that album still has such an impact. Of course, we had no idea what we were doing when we were young. But it turned into something great, still to this day. I think it opened up the band to a proper audience. So, it made the world for me. It’s one of my favorite albums.
– Since you are the godfather of our page, what memories can you recall from the recordings of “The Gallery’s” album?
Mikael Stanne: It was the first time we worked with Fredrik Nordstrom at Fredman Studios. I’ve been there before, recording the first IN FLAMES album, “Lunar Strain”. So, I knew Fredrik, and it was fun because we had crazy coming up with the songs. Also, we had the experience of doing DARK TRANQUILITY’s “Skydancer” album there in 1993, so we knew what to expect going into the studio. The way Fredrik works is so effortless and easy, that it’s just a blast! I think we recorded the whole thing in two weeks. But I remember being nervous, having to nail the takes and make sure everything sounded as good as possible, because it was recorded in analog mode on tape, as it used to back in the day. Every single thing was done on tape and not in the digital way, where you can do it all over again, two million times. It was different like that. We learned a lot. I think it came out really well. We were on Osmose Records, which was a Black Metal label back then. Still is. That put us weirdly in another kind of genre bucket, so people expected us to be a Black Metal band just because we were on Osmos Records. We started touring in 1995 and people came out in corpse-paint, expecting us to be a Black Metal band. That was fun!
– This album was recorded straight after “Slaughter of the Soul” album from AT THE GATES at Fredman Studio. So it was totally crazy listening to those masterpieces of Melodic Death Metal being released, one after the other!
Mikael Stanne: We were from the same area with AT THE GATES, we’ve known each other since we were kids. I was always in the studio when they recorded, and we hung out, drank beers and listened to how well it sounded. There was pretty much one guy who learned and started a studio concerning Metal music. Fredman studio was basically the only place we could record.
– What is going on with DARK TRANQUILITY? Is the band on hiatus right now, or are you preparing new stuff?
Mikael Stanne: No, we have never been on hiatus. It’s always full-on. We’ve been working for a year on the new album. We just finished recording the vocals the day before we left for the cruise. So, very much happening. We are doing tons of festivals, and the album comes out in August 2024. Then we have a tour…
– Is your new album complete? Where have you recorded it?
Mikael Stanne: We recorded it at Martin Ransom Studio in Gothenburg, so it was super comfortable. We write everything and we record it there. It’s been fantastic working like that. Jens Bogren is mixing it right now actually, so I’m going there immediately after this, in two days from now, to oversee the mix.
– Your musical adventure is continuing these years with THE HALO EFFECT. What was people’s impact for your new effort?
Mikael Stanne: It’s incredible! Before we started the band, it was just an idea. Kind of like, “Let’s do something together!” Niklas Engelin wanted to perform in the band, Peter Iwers wanted to play some music in it also, Daniel Svensson and Jesper Strömblad wanted too. I felt like it was a reason to hang out more because we don’t see each other that much, so I was kind of intrigued. I was like “Yeah, let’s form a band so we can hang out more!”. Niklas is a great songwriter. Peter, Daniel and Jesper fucking kicked ass together, so I knew it was going to be really interesting. Of course, we could work on the album for a long time, because it was COVID period at that time. We had unlimited time and we could wait and plan everything before the release, because nothing else was happening, thing very luxurious and nice for us. Then, once we released the first video, it blew up and that was fantastic! It’s cool to see people taking the music in their hearts. We’ve been lucky because all the shows we’ve done till now, were fantastic. There’s still a need for Melodic Death Metal as it seems!
– Do you believe that there is a side of your musical self that needs to be expressed differently than with DARK TRANQUILITY?
Mikael Stanne: I never used to think that, because I’ve never had a side project outside DARK TRANQUILITY. However, this is fun. It turned out to be really interesting to me writing about different things, to use a different vocabulary, creating a different way of expression with a different band. It was better than I expected!
– For someone who doesn’t know DARK TRANQUILITY and THE HALO EFFECT, how would you characterize those bands and what are the differences between them?
Mikael Stanne: It’s all kind of Melodic Death Metal, but I think the difference is that with DARK TRANQUILITY we have an idea that we want to get across. We have a focus, something that we need, something we want to communicate and we take that very seriously. We want it to be as good as it possibly can be. Furthermore, we want an emotional impact in whatever we write as well. THE HALO EFFECT is very much like old-school stuff and more like a traditional Metal band. It doesn’t have to be as serious, dark, or passionate as DT. It’s a totally different vibe. I think it’s more straightforward and more riff-focused, whereas DARK TRANQUILITY is more song-focused. It’s a focus on emotional impact, kind of profound emotions that we want to communicate. With THE HALO EFFECT, the songs are basically about the stuff that we grew up with.
– So how did this idea come up? Was it Peter Iwers’ idea?
Mikael Stanne: It was Niklas’ idea. He said to me, “I’ll talk to Peter if he wants to be a part of it. Are you up for it?” And I was like, “Oh, yeah! Let’s do it!”. We’ve been neighbors since 14 years old, so we have known each other and lived close to each other all our lives. But now, we’re adults and we have kids and stuff, we don’t see each other that much, so that made it easy for us.
– Excluding your last album with DARK TRANQUILITY, which album do you believe is the highlight of your career till now?
Mikael Stanne: Of course, “The Gallery” is super special because it was the first proper real album I would make. I love “Character” (2005). I love “Damage Done” (2002). I love how “Moment” (2020) and “Atoma” (2016) came out because they were difficult and challenging to write. We tapped into something really cool when writing them. Now, I can’t wait, I’m so close to this new album that it has been an emotional experience to write it because there were so many things that we needed to address and get out of our system. This album is probably the most profound that we’ve ever done, so I’m looking forward to that too. Of course, it doesn’t get any easier to write music, but we’re still better at it and you can now make sure that you’ll find many special things you want in our music.
– What about the “Projector” album in 1999?
Mikael Stanne: I love that one too. That was very different and no one understood it or got it at the time, but it has become a favorite one for a lot of people. I love it!
– It was totally different, having a huge DEPECHE MODE vibe in it… which album was the bestseller for DARK TRANQUILITY till now?
Mikael Stanne: Honestly, I don’t know. Some of the latest albums have been so much better than anything before. I think “Atoma” was probably our bestseller for the last 20 years or so. The “Moment” did incredibly well, but I try not to think about those things.
– Ok! So, which bands have you been listening to in the last few months, concerning all kinds of music?
Mikael Stanne: The album I listen to the most right now is “The Love Still Held Me Near” (2023) from CITY AND COLOUR. It’s a solo project of Dallas Green from ALEXIS ON FIRE. It’s from Toronto, Canada. It’s my favorite record right now. It came out last year. Also, the first vinyl release for one of my all-time favorite bands in Sweden, ANEKDOTEN. They just released their second album “Nucleus” on vinyl for the first time ever, and I cannot stop listening to it. Super obscure. It’s from 1995. It’s a Progressive Rock band. It’s amazing!
– What can you recall in your memory from the days that you were the singer of IN FLAMES? Do you have a specific complaint from the band during that period?
Mikael Stanne: No. Jesper Strömblad wanted to start a new band. He was in another band called CEREMONIAL OATH and he just wanted to do something more for himself. He asked me to sing because he had just heard the “Skydancer” album, and he was impressed by the way I sang. So he was like “I want to form a band and I want it to sound like DARK TRANQUILITY” and maybe he wanted it to be melodic and cool. After the recording of “Skydancer”, I started singing with DARK TRANQUILITY. So when Jesper asked me, I just needed practice and experience. It made sense to me to be part of something, and we started recording one demo, so that got picked up. We got a deal for our first album and then we recorded it. We only did two or three shows that were there, but I wasn’t ready to be part of another band at that time. I was like, “I’m just singing on the album. It’s fine. You can find someone else later”. So, it was never a proper band for me.
– As far as I know, you are not mentioned as the first singer of IN FLAMES, not even in the booklet of “Lunar Strain” (1994) album, for which you have recorded the vocals.
Mikael Stanne: No. I wrote the lyrics, of course, but other than that, I didn’t do much. Yes, I did write everything, and I wrote some crazy sci-fi-themed lyrics and offered one to them.
– Where do you get inspiration for your lyrics?
Mikael Stanne: It can be anything, but it mostly comes from frustration. Frustration about what the world looks like right now. All this shit we are dealing with and going through. It feels good after a weird day or a long week to sit down and write and get stuff out of your system. For the latest DARK TRANQUILITY, we went through a lot of things in the last couple of years. So I wanted to capture that sense of melancholy, loss and grief. Ant that, became a big theme for the album. However, THE HALO EFFECT is the opposite. It’s kind of reminiscent of where we started and where we are now, trying to come up with some kind of allegory for life.
– After all those years of touring, what’s your best festival experience and why?
Mikael Stanne: There are so many fantastic festivals. I think my favorite is Summer Breeze. With THE HALO EFFECT, our first-ever show was at Sweden Rock Festival on the main stage in front of 25,000 people! That was very cool! With DARK TRANQUILITY we’ve done some incredible festivals. Especially in South America and Colombia, where it’s been these insane crowds that still shout! I understand very well how that happened. I think Sweden Rock Festival is probably my favorite. It feels special to play in my home country and follow that bigger crowd. I go there every year anyway, and sometimes we are on stage too.
– I remember you with DARK TRANQUILITY in Summer Breeze in 2017. I’ve been there. I remember that huge crowd-surfing was totally massive. They were coming crowd-surfers all the time. They took you back and forth… (Laughs)
Mikael Stanne: Oh yeah, that was fun (laughs)! It may have been a crowd-surfing record. In the front house sound tower was our sound engineer. It was his birthday, so I crowd-surfed from the stage we were playing to the tower, just to say hi to him, and all the way back… it was so epic!!
– Except for being a musician, what was your status or your everyday life, job-wise? I mean, are you able to afford living tasks by being a musician?
Mikael Stanne: I do now, but I’ve worked all kinds of different jobs. I’ve worked for a great non-profit organization that provides aid and support to people with disabilities. It makes sure that if you have a disability, you can get the help you need where you can actually choose. I worked there for 17 years and it was perfect, because I had all the freedom that I wanted. If I wanted to go on tour or record, I could always go back to work and kind of feel grounded. That really helped. I worked in take-care centers and I worked with the elderly. I always worked as a caretaker.
– How do you see the scene in Gothenburg nowadays? Which differences can you find between now and back in the 90s?
Mikael Stanne: It is very different, but it’s also very similar because there are tons of new cool bands in every genre. We have some amazing Prog and Doom Metal bands, as also a lot of Death Metal bands. It’s a new scene for up-and-coming bands and new young bands. 16- and 17-year-old musicians are fantastic and kick so much out! It’s a lot of rage in their music. They’re pretty much everything and it’s fantastic to see that it’s not going to go away, it’s still going very well.
– Any bands to suggest to our readers?
Mikael Stanne: I love a band called HOSTILIA. They are young but amazing. Incredible kind of Thrashy Death. That’s probably my favorite band, a band that I go to and see live the most.
– As you already know, we love DARK TRANQUILITY in Greece. Can you recall any nice memories from your visits in Greece during the shows with DT? Or maybe after them…?
Mikael Stanne: Probably my favorite that I remember the most was when we did a tour together with CANDLEMASS and ENTOMBED. Hanging out with two of my all-time favorite bands and being in Greece was amazing. Johan Edlund from TIAMAT used to live in Greece, so I remember he came out during one song and sang with me. There were always incredible crowds and excellent, fucking beautiful people in Greece, and I loved everything!
– Now, I will name six metal personalities who have died during the past years. I want you to share some words and opinions about them. So, let’s start:
Chuck Schuldiner, DEATH.
Mikael Stanne: For me, DEATH was one of the most important bands of all time. I grew up with that stuff, you know. “Scream Bloody Gore” (1987) was incredible! Of course, the two albums, “Symbolic” (1995), and Individual Thought Patterns” (1993), changed everything in terms of Progressive Metal and Technical Death Metal. I think that was the peak of DEATH. “The Sound of Perseverance” (1998) is of course great as well, but I think those two albums are probably for me the most amazing Death Metal albums.
– Jon Nödtveidt, DISSECTION.
Mikael Stanne: He was awesome. I have known him since we were kids and we grew up in the scene together. We were pen pals first, and then we did a couple of shows together. We played one of our first shows with DISSECTION. It was before either of us had recorded demos. This was in 1990. I was playing guitar and singing. That was in Strömstad, where they are from. Of course, I know his brother Emil, we were always great friends. Then he kind of turned strange and got into Satanism and all that kind of stuff, and we lost contact. I’m really sad. I got to see him a few times in the last couple of years, but I kind of lost contact. An amazing musician. I really liked DISSECTION’s music.
– L.G. Petrov, ENTOMBED.
Mikael Stanne: He has been a friend since I was 20. They came to Gothenburg for parties and shows. I saw NIHILIST, along with GROTESQUE, who then became AT THE GATES. He was the coolest guy ever. Every time I went to Stockholm, if I did press or something like that, he was always like, “Hey, can I join? Just as we can hang out and drink beer”. He came to our shows, and I always went to see ENTOMBED. He was the funniest and most amazing guy ever, and I miss him a lot.
– Euronymous, MAYHEM.
Mikael Stanne: He was part of the Black Metal scene at the time, and I read all this stuff about these bands there. The whole Black Metal thing didn’t appeal to me at all. So I didn’t really get into it that much. It sucked, actually, because they were friends who killed each other…
– Warrel Dane, NEVERMORE.
Mikael Stanne: Fucking amazing dude! I met him several times here on the first cruise when he played on SANCTUARY. Such a super fucking funny guy! We did a lot of festival stuff together and we always had some fucking amazingly good times. He was such a great singer, and I’m missing him. His voice was unique.
– And the last one. Quorthon, BATHORY.
Mikael Stanne: I never met him; I was a little bit young then. There’s no denying that BATHORY is one of the most influential bands of all time in Metal. I remember listening to “Under the Sign of the Black Mark” (1987), and I couldn’t believe it! I went to the record store, put it on, and listened to the headphones, and I was like “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever heard!”. I’ve been a fan of it since 1988! There’s no overstatement of how important they were. I know that in the latest albums later on, he was fighting stuff. It was incredible, it was huge!
– So you like both periods, the Black Metal and the whole epic stuff of BATHORY?
Mikael Stanne: Yeah!
– I will mention another musician. He still lives but I would like to know your opinion about him and his music: Varg Vikernes, BURZUM.
Mikael Stanne: I don’t have any connection to them, but of course, I remember when the person came out. I never had any contact with Varg. I like a lot of his music. But everything around it, I didn’t like it. I wasn’t into that Black Metal scene of Norway back then, and I’m not now either. It all felt kind of weird to me, I didn’t get it, and I wasn’t into it at all.
– Ok. Let’s move on. Tell me the top three producers and sound-engineers you worked with in the past? Also, with which one do did you have the best contact and the best touch?
Mikael Stanne: I worked a lot with Fredrik Nordström. He is an amazing guy, easy to work with! He was responsible in creating the sound of Melodic Death Metal, Gothenburg’s style. Nowadays, we record and produce everything ourselves, but we use Jens Bogren, who mixes it, and he’s my favorite. He’s such a detail-oriented guy. Everything that he puts out is top-notch. Then, we worked with Tue Madsen. I think he did a fantastic mix for “Fiction” album. Α super, fucking fantastic guy. He nails this kind of Metal of Thrashy and chunky sound. But we didn’t have much interaction, he just mixed stuff. He lives in Denmark; we were in Sweden, and we didn’t see him, but I love his work.
– So I’m going to ask you this: What gives you strength and energy to keep on doing what you do, creating also some new projects?
Mikael Stanne: It’s all kinds of different things. The interaction with fans, all the people you get to meet just because of what you do. Being able to do something like this, for instance, that’s fantastic. Money can be very good too, which is awesome, but I think more than anything, it’s like the knowledge that we have an outlet where we can communicate with people who are listening. Writing something and coming up with something in your bedroom or home, and eventually recording it and getting it out. Then being on stage and having people understand exactly what you were thinking or what you wanted to communicate, I think it’s the best feeling in the world. And even though all the traveling and all the madness that goes on around it, that is my favorite thing, to be able to communicate. That’s my favorite!
– Great! Mikael thank you very much for talking to THE GALLERY’s Web Magazine! It’s been an honour! The last words to our readers are yours….
Mikael Stanne: I’m just happy to still be able to do what I do. We have amazing fans in Greece who care for us enough, in order to make us come over and see you guys! We absolutely love it! Thank you!
Interview: Alexandros Soultatos
Audio Transcription: Vasiliki Kalogera
Cover Artwork: Alexandros Soultatos
Design & Editing: Alexandros Soultatos
Cover Photo: Daniel Falk
Date: June 16th, 2024
External Link: DARK TRANQUILLITY – Official Page
THE HALO EFFECT – Official Page
Copyright © 2024 by THEGALLERY.GR
(this interview was accomplished during the 70.000 Tons of Metal 2024 Metal cruise)
