Dear Members and Visitors:
What follows is an interview with Daniel Gildenlöw, vocalist and guitarist of Pain of Salvation. The interview was secured and conducted by one of ProgArchives’ Collaborators, Kurt Zander. On behalf of the ProgArchives Webmasters and Admin Group, we congratulate and thank Kurt for this marvelous, insightful interview.
Maani
On behalf of the ProgArchives Staff
-------------------------
From Kurt:
First, I’d like to offer a toast to Mr. Gildenlöw for taking time off from his busy agenda to answer quite a few of my inquiries, which he did with honesty and thoughtfulness.
As some of you may already know, Mr. Gildenlöw just completed guitar duties on THE FLOWER KINGS’ ‘Adam & Eve’ 10th Anniversary European Tour 2004. However, the questions herein are focused solely around PAIN OF SALVATION (Daniel’s beloved creation from Eskilstuna, Sweden). In fact, Mr. Gildenlöw has been busy indeed, not only with the aforementioned tour, but with the release of PAIN OF SALVATION’s latest conceptual opus, “Be.” The fellows of PAIN OF SALVATION have somehow managed to top themselves once again, with a sound that is epic, touching, eclectic, inspiring, narrative, and always provoking in some form or another. The album shows the band exploring new musical plateaus, and presents long-time admirers of the band once again with something original that could only be wrought from the minds of genius.
In the following interview, Mr. Gildenlöw is customarily well-spoken and adeptly thorough with his answers. It is my pleasure to present to you the first-ever ProgArchives interview with PAIN OF SALVATION’s very own bread and butter, Daniel Gildenlöw.
-------------------
PA: What message do you wish to express with your music?
DG: It depends very much on what album I am writing, but I always revolve around humanistic values and the way every action will make a difference on a surprisingly large scale. I wish to focus on the fact that it is important who you are and what you do, and that the quest for finding out how to deal with those two topics is something that will follow us throughout our lives. Mankind may be the stupidest creature ever to have walked the surface of this earth (people may argue that we have survived this long and prospered so we must be very successful – well, then I say that every other species alive today has survived just as long, and furthermore, all other species ever to be extinct survived up to a certain point when they, for some reason, became too stupid to survive and fit the system – so maybe we were “smart” up until about 8,000 years ago and NOW we are too stupid to survive in that we simply grab too much), but I still haven’t given up on us.
PA: What are some of the goals of Pain of Salvation, musically, professionally, etc.?
DG: To drive the unworthy hordes of filthy human creatures in front of us and punish them relentlessly for their ignorance with our rightful swords of blazing steel and leather whips carved out of live cattle, in order to prevent them from breeding and thus, with their detestable inbred descendants reeking of sloth and stupidity, soil this earth that justly belongs to us!
Sorry, I’m just having this fling with power metal… Did I forget to mention the dark pits of angst and fire? [Laughs]
PA: When did your love for music come to fruition?
DG: Well, I grew up in a home where music was very present – my parents were listening to music and had a lot of records. I found my favourites in some Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, ELO and so on. But usually I was stuck on particular songs rather than specific artists or albums, and I am exactly the same still. So I would, carefully, play those specific songs from those specific albums. Some songs that I remember falling for very early were “The Boxer” and “Sound of Silence” (Simon & Garfunkel); “Jolene” (Olivia Newton John); “Fernando” (the verses), “Winner Takes it All”, “Eagle” and “Happy New Year” (ABBA); “Norwegian Wood”, “Let It Be” and, of course, the second half of “Abbey Road” (The Beatles) I also loved the movie “Help” as well, and really liked the song “Hide Your Love Away.” There was also this song about a grocer named Jack who died, and I remember being really moved by that song as a kid – I later found out that it was “Excerpt from a Teenage Opera” by Keith West. I also remember “Mission” (ELO), “Suicide is Painless” (M*A*S*H) and “Mother’s Little Helper” (The Rolling Stones) – all of which could be found if you ventured through my parents’ record and tape collection. All this was before school so I would have had to be younger than 7. Later on I found Jesus Christ Superstar, before getting into Kiss at the age of 8 – in the school library they had this one cool album called “Love Gun” by Kiss. Now, they had two audio systems and four chairs with headphone jacks, which meant you could be two guys listening to the same album, but only two albums could be played. So, during every lesson you would (through whispers) pair up with a class mate to aim to get one of those systems and listen to Kiss during the coming break, then you would double your chances to get to listen to the album. A few times you would come running into the library out of breath just to find both audio systems taken. That would signify a bad day. [Laughs] Anyway, I think it was Kiss that made me obsessed with the idea of writing music and playing the guitar. They were the trigger, even though I’d been enjoying trying mom’s guitar or the piano even before that.
PA: Is selling a large number of records important at all, perhaps, to communicate a message to many people?
DG: Well, yes and no. First of all, of course it helps you to get your point through if it is digested, or at least received, by a lot of people. But there is more to it. I mean, it would be just as sufficient if all people got your music for free, through downloading it or copying it, for instance. However, if you look at it from a long-term perspective you will find it necessary to sell at least a fair deal of albums, since your ability to devote yourself to your music and worlds of creation derives from your financial situation and, uttermost, how well your creations are received and how much that generates. If nobody bought an album I would probably have to give up after two or three attempts as an artist, no matter how big my communicative or artistic urge would be. In short, if I had to work 8 hours a day with plumbing to be able to pay rent and food and have that as my sole income, I would never be able to invest so much time and effort in the music and concepts that I create.
PA: What types of curriculum interested in you, during the educational process?
DG: Well, there is always the difference between being good at, and being interested in, I guess. I was reading and writing very early, and language has always come easy for me, but in school that meant I had to skip two grades in Swedish and I always hated attending those classes. A wiseass is never appreciated, so the fourth graders would, of course, be quite irritated when this second grader would sit in on their lessons. I always loved drawing and music, but, again, I detested music lessons in those early years. Our teacher actually bribed me in second grade, giving me a small coin every time I joined the others in singing a song. I think this is quite natural (although maybe not what we would call “normal”) and caused by under-stimulation; I was very easily bored. I loved to write short stories to which I drew images, creating characters, and names for the characters. I drove many teachers nuts by contradicting them in their lines of reasoning. In retrospect, I was probably quite odd. In second grade I refused to be called Daniel and would only listen to the name Christian (which is rather amusing considering the meaning of the name in English). I was a very fast runner but I always hated gymnastics and sports and, of course, happily shared that information with all teachers in those subjects. And I always had to prove things. Once our teacher decided to punish me during a soccer game by letting me run one time around the whole soccer field (they are huge). I ran 28 times around the field, until the lesson ended. The only one suffering from that was me of course. Stupid boy. [Smiles] Anyway, I later on learned to appreciate language again, when I finally found an intelligent and creative teacher. I sometimes wish I had been growing up in another time, when physics and mathematics were considered exciting and a lot of creative people were into that – with enthusiastic teachers I think I could have been brilliant in those subjects. Instead, I have had to find them at a much later age by myself. To sum it up – I love knowledge and learning, but the educational process has constantly and repeatedly only turned me off. I wish more creative and charismatic people would choose to become teachers.
PA: Did you ever take vocal lessons?
DG: I did, during Music College – but I must say that it only confused me in my quest to find my own voice. At first my teacher could only confirm that I did things correctly from the start, then she proceeded to try to force me into a template on how to sing. It took me like two years to get back on track after those lessons. [Laughs]
PA: What is your knowledge concerning musical theory? Did you ever receive guitar lessons, or are you self-taught?
DG: To me, learning music theory was like studying a language you already speak. You basically knew all the words and how they would relate to each other and have different values in different situations. But then you learn that this specific word class is called a non-transitive verb for instance, or that this particular form of the word is called future tense, see? It is very helpful in communicating your ideas to other musicians, or understanding why this or that passage is so attractive to you. Music itself, however, is a completely different thing. We all know physics by heart, every time we make the immense calculations needed to keep our balance when we walk, or in the way we can calculate gravitation and mass at the blink of an eye when someone throws us a ball. To know the set of rules and notions is a different thing altogether, but may still be as useful to you. To answer your question then; I took guitar lessons from the age of nine – our teacher was an old drunk who had never heard of the term “pedagogy” – and what he taught me more than anything else, even though he didn’t know this, was the importance of not giving up. We were six or seven kids at first. I was the only one left after one year. One by one they would start to cry and leave, never to return to his lessons. I had my times when I wanted to quit too, but my mother would always say “Hang in there, things will brighten up.” She was right of course. My conclusion when it comes to learning from teachers is this: “Listen carefully to what they say, then the hell with it”…
PA: Would you consider yourself autonomous in nature?
DG: Yes, I have a wonderful talent when it comes to ignoring common knowledge. This has always led me down the path of originality, with lines of people on both sides of the path, shaking their heads. It is, of course, my mission in life always to prove them wrong. [Smiles]
PA: What, or whom, would you say inspires you?
DG: My wife Johanna inspires me, of course. There have been so many sources of inspiration in my life, it’s just impossible to mention even a fraction. But what it all boils down to is the fact that who we are as persons affects all we do, so the inspirational forces that have changed me as a person are simply more influential on my music than any musical references. That’s my opinion anyway. And then I can mention some of my all time heroes: Astrid Lindgren and Tage Danielsson, two Swedish writers who have been of great importance to me in retrospect. They always had humanistic values at the heart of everything they did.
PA: Have films had any influence on you or your writing?
DG: I have always loved movies, an interest that has only increased with every passing year. I couldn’t say any movies in particular, but musically I would have to mention “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “The Wall,” of course.
PA: What are your thoughts on religious belief systems?
DG: Difficult topic to deal with in this limited context. My whole point in “BE” is that religion is our small way of repeating a pattern from a higher fractal level. Another piece of the puzzle is the fact that fractal relations tend to shift: the tools we create become our masters, just like the “masters” that (according to the religious belief systems you mention) create us become our tools, allowing us to kill in the name of pacifism or burn to save from eternal flames. To me, human religion can be displayed by a hypothetic scene where two one-dimensional people look at a cylinder from two angles and then kill each other in a fight concerning whether it is round or square. They can simply never grasp the concept of the three dimensions. This does not mean that the cylinder is supernatural or fantastic in any way; it is merely on a fractal above their comprehension. They are both right, and they are both wrong. The question “Is there a god?” in our world, is like for them to ask “Is the shape round?” – altogether just a concept that cannot be applied to our sense of reality, our fractal. Thus, as I see it, every/any human conclusion on this must ultimately and without exception be faulty and fractioned (it may seem as if I, myself, am making a conclusion or definition right here, but I only conclude that we cannot know, which is to decide to avoid making a definition rather than defining something). No point killing each other over that; we have so many other reasons anyway, as it seems.
PA: What are your views on drugs?
DG: If you have a small mind they seem to help you get access to the parts you have shut down. It’s like a shortcut to a visionary state that you can reach anyway if you just let go of your mental limitations put there after years and years in this world. If your mind is already large they will just help you shut down other parts of it. Let’s say they are a shortcut to a place to which you will never find a proper way if you use them. Usually, when a mediocre artist starts doing drugs, they will in fact produce one or two interesting albums, more open-minded than their previous work, then they will just turn sour and never do anything as good again. At least, that’s my impression. I don’t go near them. I have struggled through dense vegetation to find that place anyway, and that journey has done me good.
PA: What are your feelings about live performances?
DG: I love to perform live; it gives music another dimension. I just wish that our contemporary society was more appreciative when it comes to seeing live music. But, then again, I hardly ever go and see other bands live so who am I to say anything, really. On the other hand, I think it would be different if I weren’t playing music myself – I have to focus on the creational process and sometimes that means cutting down on the incoming channels. On stage, sometimes you get to that state of magic when you are 100% into the song and you are just in this flow – being in touch with something larger than life (just a matter of speaking; life transcends most things if we can just see the grand scale of it).
PA: What does the future hold for Pain of Salvation?
DG: I have no idea. We usually surprise ourselves just as much as we surprise our fans and the press. There will be the “BE” DVD of course, and we should start thinking about touring. And then, somewhere down the line, the second part of “The Perfect Element” is bound to come to life, of course.
PA: How do you feel about having such a devoted and exclusive number of admirers of Pain of Salvation?
DG: I feel just fine about that. There will always be the occasional e-mail from people thinking I am their god or the new messiah and things like that, but most people are just very nice and care very much for our music and the concepts that we deal with on our albums. Maybe I would say that I am fonder of devotion than exclusiveness.
PA: You have stated that “One Hour By the Concrete Lake” is not near the top of your list of favorite albums. What is it about that album that bothers you?
DG: Nothing. I love all our albums. If I am asked to place them in a sort of personal order of liking (which I prefer not to, but am sometimes forced to), it just happens to be the one I would place at the bottom (one of the albums is bound to be there). That does not mean that there is any big difference; they follow each other very closely for me. I simply see that as the least original and unique one. It is still more original than most albums out there though, so I am not worried. [Laughs]
PA: As regards the continuation of “The Perfect Element” story, when do you plan on writing it?
DG: Parts of it are written already, and I was just planning to continue it when we decided to do “BE” instead. Right now it is just sitting on my mental shelf waiting for me to return to it. I can only say that it will not be our next album. That’s all I know right now.
PA: In the inside of the “Remedy Lane” booklet, there are dates next to the song titles. What is the significance of these dates? Are they the dates the songs were written?
DG: They are the dates when the content of the songs takes place, much like a chronological grid that has been taken apart - like when we recall parts of our lives and we make associations between different periods and events without caring about chronology.
PA: Finally, about your latest opus, “BE,” what was the recording ambiance and experience like for this album? What was it like to work with so many other musician in the studio?
DG: The most different thing was that this was the first album I recorded and mixed at home, which was a very interesting experience on every level. The strings, unfortunately, had to be recorded live, so there was a lot of work with filtering and synchronisation. For the church organ, I had to take parts of my equipment to a big church to record it on location, so actually, apart from us, only Cecilia (the female vocals on Dea Pecuniae) and the Morgan family (reading the Animae narration) were in the studio with me.
PA: What do you hope for in the future?
DG: A better world where mankind finally realises what the real dangers of our time are and actually changes. Adapt BEFORE we are forced to. We simply need to be much, much better than we are today – the abuse of nature and the poor must end, there is no going around it in the long run.
PA: Congratulations with the release and magnificence of “BE.” Furthermore, I’d like to thank all those involved with Pain of Salvation from the beginning to present, for all their contributions to such an important musical unit.
DG: Thanks, and you are welcome. Wow, that turned out to be a rather funny bipolar exchange of appreciation… [Laughs]
PA: Do you wish add anything not mentioned, or whatever’s on your mind?
DG: Nope, I feel absolutely content and satisfied. [Smiles]
Edited by M@X
/PAlogo_v2.gif "Progarchives.com Homepage")
Daniel Gildenlow, December 2004
Topic Options
.
.
How should I know?
Excellent interview, and excellent replies!
