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An Interview with Daniel Gildenlöw

By Tal Ofer

Here is a special Interview I've made with Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of Salvation) on April 15th, 2004.

Hi Daniel, It’s an honour for me to do the first Israeli interview with you. Moreover it’s a pleasure for me as a prog metal listener to do an interview with one of my favourite musicians today.

Thank you very much for those kind words. I hope to be there in the flesh one day, but for now you’ll have to do with my words. I’m ready…

So, what are you doing these days?

Well, the 12:5 album was released pretty recently, but as usual in the music business there’s always that delay between finished product and release, so I have left that production behind me and moved on to “BE” – so right now I am working around the clock with the recordings and production of that. However, even with the 12:5 production being personally “closed” it is always such a thrill to see the albums released, in its final form – and the reviews have been great so far. I mean, personally I know 12:5 is a tremendous album, but I didn’t expect the media to see that since it falls under the categories “live” and “acoustic” – I am very glad they could look beyond those misleading labels.

How did you establish Pain of Salvation? Can you give the readers a short biography of the band and of yourself as a musician?

Pain of Salvation was never formed. That said, I guess I must clarify :)
When I was eleven I formed this band called Reality. We developed during the years, band members left and new ones came along, the music changed. In 1991 we played our first gig as Pain of Salvation, but I still see the band being born in 1996 when Fredrik joined the band, until then we never had the keyboards I was always looking for, and composing for.

What can you tell us about the upcoming album “BE”? Is it another concept album by Pain of Salvation? Can we expect The Perfect Element part II?

Oh yes, it’s yet another concept album, bigger than ever. We cooperated with a music organisation here in Sweden to be able to make a live production of this piece of work, and we were discussing the possibility of doing TPEII at that point, but then we would have had to make both parts to make the live show come across, and there was neither time nor possibility to achieve that then, so we went for “BE” which is an idea I’ve been turning around since 1997 or so. (Don’t worry, there will be a TPEII) All the concepts I come up with are thoughts I have been living with intimately for long times, usually years, until one day when an alarm clock goes off telling my brain to get to work – the pieces are coming together, and material from the least expected areas suddenly show their true nature and purpose for the first time, and I can see for the first time how the pieces fit together.

What makes Sweden, in the last years, so popular in the prog rock and metal genre? There are many bands like Evergrey, Pain Of Salvation, Opeth, Andromeda, A.C.T, Flower Kings, Anglagaard and many more?

I have no idea. My generation had very good opportunities to learn instruments and music for free from an early age, that is definitely important. Also, the market here in Sweden is so small you have to go international to stand a chance of doing what you want to do in music, so many Swedish bands may make a name for themselves abroad while German bands may have a wide market nationally. Just speculation, really…

There are many prog metal bands today, but it seems that Pain of Salvation established a unique style. For example we can hear you doing so many kinds of vocals, your music merges many genres, what do you think about that?

Definitely true, and I can think of one specific reason why we are not a typical prog metal band, see, we never aspired to be a prog metal band. I don’t want to sound rude in any way, but most prog metal really sucks. We listen to very varied music styles and pick up influences from basically everywhere. That’s how it should be. Music is free and unbound; if you wish to portray life you must let life into your music, and let your music be as beautiful, scary, brave, ugly, sad and free as life itself.

We would like to hear from you what was the official reason that you didn’t participate in the O.S.I project? Maybe you are too good for O.S.I?

Matheos wanted to go more Kevin and Chroma Key then he initially intended.

Do you think you will play together with Matheos/Moore/Portnoy in any future side-project? There are rumours that Mike Portnoy wants you as the singer for his next side project.

I could (and have done so) work with Mike, and I like what Kevin does (he’s got that Scandinavian touch in his music, we have a work for it that does not have an equivalent in the English language, it has a connotation of both sadness, bitterness and a cold beauty somehow – a word of dark evenings and autumn winds and loneliness: Vemod). As of today, I cannot really see myself working with Matheos.

How did the cooperation between you and Transatlantic start? And also, how did the cooperation between you and Flower Kings start? Can we expect more surprises, like Roine Stolt in a guest appearance on Pain of Salvation albums?

Transatlantic were looking for someone who could sing and play keyboards, guitar and percussion for their tour. Roine heard of me and he asked me if I’d be up for it. Sure thing. Mike was happy since he was already then listening to Pain of Salvation and had asked us to be on their tour with Dream Theater. So it was really a coincident. Through that cooperation Roine became interested in having me in The Flower Kings. I have today agreed to be a member of The Flower Kings as long as it doesn’t interfere with Pain of Salvation to any large extent. As far as guest appearances are concerned, it’s not in my interest to have musicians appearing in our music simply because of their names. Roine is as likely to appear as any other good guitarist I know, famous or not. On “BE” we will have a guest appearance by a female vocalist from our home town. The first time I heard her I thought “I want to have her sing something with me sometime!” because of her very special voice. That’s the point of departure you need to have I think.

How can you explain the musical cooperation between you and Stolt, when you are coming from totally different ways? Is it true that you’ll make some vocals on the next Flower Kings album?

I don’t think we are coming from completely different directions. We both appreciate quality in music and structure, and we both go for social and emotional angles to a large extent, and we both take our composing very seriously. We share a lot of our music taste as well. In short, we use the same language but we express ourselves a bit differently.
And yes, I will sing a few songs and do a lot of harmonies on the coming Flower Kings album.

What or who is your main inspiration source while you write your lyrics and what is the main message that you’re trying to get across to the listeners?

Life in general is my biggest source of inspiration; the political state of the world in our contemporary society triggers my inspiration every day, as well as books, movies and documentaries. But life is enough. Regardless of our specific situations my point of view is that we all share the same set of emotions that can be translated into other context; even if we cannot relate to any given situation, we can still relate to the emotional patterns displayed through that situation.

How many of your songs are autobiographic songs? Which songs would you consider as the most important you’ve written?

In a sense, all creative processes and all artistic work have an autobiographical foundation, that’s where we get those emotional patterns from. Our empathy stretches out from, thus deriving from, an understanding of ourselves. All my lyrics have autobiographic roots, even though the story may be fictional. If I wish people to relate to what I write (and I strongly do), I must relate to it myself. But it’s the inner context rather than the physical one in most cases. It’s hard to distinguish any songs as being more important than others, but I really like the lyrics of for example “Winning a War”, “Handful of Nothing”, “King of Loss” and “Rope Ends”…

In the album 12:5 you divided the songs into three Books: Genesis, Genesister, Genesinister. What is the idea behind it?

Well, first of all, it has become something of a Pain of Salvation trademark to have three chapters on the albums. Secondly, I love the division of three and/or five. Thirdly, the names are a mind provoking word game with the connotation of existence, development and relations, and, ultimately, the cycle of Life. Fourthly, the content of the album lyrically and musically. This is the aspect I will mention a little more in-depth. The first Book contains the first part of Brickwork, which mainly consists of previous songs re-arranged and put together to form a new experience. Quite early in the planning process I got this idea of having a two piece work consisting of earlier material, and when this developed I started to see a pattern content-wise. It turned out to be like a summoning up of the four Pain of Salvation albums lyrically, dealing with the human touch, the cycle of life and the importance and problems of emotional commitment and relationships. It seemed natural to place these parts first and last, with a musical intermezzo in between – a place for contemplation, a breath before diving into the water again in the third and last Book on the album.

And now for a serious question that I and many other fans in Israel would like to hear your opinion about: You are well known as a person with a solid opinions; what do you know about the state of Israel and what do you think about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and about the terror attacks on Israeli civilians? What is your solution for this conflict?

This is really an essay question, or even a book question. I am just afraid that I will be vastly misunderstood in this much too small arena for a topic of this size.
As I see it, if anyone on this earth should be able to see the errors in persecution and marginalisation, it should be Israel, right? But I get scared when I see how the Israeli government deals with this conflict, silently supported by USA.

Let us first look as some historical events. In 1922 the British government declared a mandate in Palestine, a natural behaviour for one of the two most hypocritical empires in modern time, built on occupation and colonisation and the perpetual dividing of nations and peoples into “them” and “us”. 1937 Winston Churchill said that he didn’t see the Palestine people as having the rights to their nation, just because they lived there, just as the native American Indians or the blacks of Australia should not have any claims on their lands. In this context, his whole argument rested on the case that some races are more refined and evolved and should therefore have a natural right to whatever land they found suitable. This is the political, and dare I say philosophical, point of departure displayed by the British government, as well as the US government, and even by UN when they 1947 split the nation in two, giving the Zionists 55% of the country (still a country they did not have any other right to more than a right based on racist ideologies). Within a year, the Zionists had taken 76%. 1948 the state Israel was announced, acknowledged by the US government within a few minutes. With the Egyptian military takeover of the Gaza Strip and Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank, Palestine formally ceased to exist.
In 1967 Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government sanctioned the replacement of people into the occupied areas. Palestinian families were driven away from their land daily. In half a lifetime the Palestine people went from a nation to a marginalized second-rate pushover part of the population that was once their country. In 1969 the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir claimed that there were no such thing as a Palestinian. Prime Minister Menachem Begin called them animals on two legs, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them locusts that could probably be crushed. These are not the hillbillies talking at the local bar after a few beers to many – these are the political governmental power talking, laying the foundation for a serious disaster with no winners. The Israeli government has always had the support from US, Britain and even UN, and just like the two former ones, terrible crimes against human rights have been committed, dressed like something else. The “War on Terror” is the perfect excuse to finish the job and put a glossy furnish to a decade long genocide. Simply put; poke the dog long enough and it will bite you, unfortunately giving you the perfect reason for its termination.

After this historical escapade, I must begin with stressing the point that terror actions are always wrong and I feel strongly with all the victims. I emphasize this very strongly! However, I must also add that I see both sides as political victims in this situation. If you corner someone and take away all his/her status, rights and land, you create an enemy with nothing to lose – I claim that every human being can be turned into an avenger or stressed out animal, it’s all about how the surroundings form this being. Mark Locke had his theory about Tabula Rasa, that we are all blank pages when we come into this life. I agree with this to a large extent, but that, however, does not mean that we can simply pick and choose what to fill these pages with ourselves. We are all formed by our surroundings and possibilities, our families, experiences and contemporary society with its social norms, actions and beliefs. This is much what many of our albums are about.
As with the US way of dealing with political issues, today’s media knowledge makes it very important for every government to make sure that their agenda is supported by a language that has a morally charged connotation in their favour. Thus, we get used to seeing two sides from only one side, so to speak. The headlines a few months ago in the US and in Sweden were about an Iraqi terrorist who had murdered an American mother of two. What happened was that an Iraqi soldier had killed an American soldier (thus a mother who left her two small children to go fight a morally very questionable war) who was there to fight the people living there (and furthermore, a soldier of a nation that, through sanctions, are estimated to be responsible for the deaths of at least 500,000 Iraqi children during the last decade – please read that number again and think about it for a while). In this scenario, the words “terrorist”, “murder” and “mother of two” become very important for how the people will store this information and react to it.
In the same way, all the atrocities performed by the Israeli government will not be called “terrorism” simply because they are calling the shots, rolling the dice. Nevertheless, there have been countless acts of terror towards the marginalized Arabic population of the area today known as Israel. It was seemingly a grand gesture to give away parts of a nation to the Zionists, and I’ll be the first to agree they deserved it, but unfortunately it wasn’t really theirs to give; it was stolen goods.

As for the solution then… It is hard to see a good way out of this – it has gone way out of control and everyone involved are so emotionally biased and hurt, blind in many ways to the human value of the “enemy”. With fear on the one side of a border, and desperation on the other, I can see the need to build a wall. But you know what? Walls never helped. It is what I would call a Very Bad Idea?. I have this saying that the only way of having total control of a forest, is to chop it all down. The only way to be completely and utterly safe, is by eliminating all threats. In a state of fear and anger, the whole surrounding world soon starts to look like a threat. This is the path Israel and USA have entered. So much for control and war on terror. We must find another way.
So, can I claim that the Israeli people should be thrown out of their country and Palestine be reformed? Of course not. Can I claim that the Palestinians be thrown out from the country they once owned? Of course not. At some point you will always cross that line beyond which there are no right answers (even though, in my own words, we are always looking for a painless redemption), and a painful compromise must ultimately be made.
If I could go back in time to 1927 I’d force the British government to give away a piece of land they actually had the moral right to. If I could go back to 1947 I’d say “Now, you got 55% of the nation, the Palestinians have less than half their country left, so let’s call it quits and live in fucking peace, OK? Don’t bargain for more or it will eat you alive, history will teach you that, clear as daylight, it will eat you.” But at the end of the day, any solution I might come up with, would once again be a male Caucasian deciding the fate of the Arabs, or any other race or creed for that matter.
I’m not a Christian, but there are certain aspects I wish that all creeds could take to heart (and I mean Christians too, since they seem to have missed these bits totally). It’s about turning the other cheek, not kill and treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself. Basic humanism. The interesting thing is, it took until the end of the 20th century to scientifically prove that this behaviour is in fact the most rewarding, both for the individual and on the bigger scale. In other words, cooperation will make you reach your goals to a much larger extent than any act of greed or violence. Take less and you will get more. Being kind is being clever. It is called Game Theory. War and violence has now been scientifically proven to be a dysfunctional means of achieving any purpose whatsoever. For any side. Now, how has that knowledge changed our behaviour?

There is a process today, which is called “The Clash of Civilizations” - The battle between the Islam and the western world, how will the battle end?

Nothing really starts or ends, especially when it comes to social and/or evolutionary processes and patterns. It is simply just the latest chapter in a struggle called Human Existence or possibly Human Failure. Every cycle in the Universe has its specific stages of development. This can be seen in the life of all living beings, in planets, projects, political parties, solar systems, religions, nations, languages… you name it. The thing is, and this is very predictable and clear but has for some reason failed to make humanity reach an understanding of it despite this, that the cycle begins with joy and happiness, a spirit of hope. After this follows a sense of family and bonding, finding your allies, the ones like you. After this you go to war, defending your beliefs – this period is signified by a rash temper and “clashes” as you call them. You will go to any extent to prove your point and importance, you want to be the biggest game in the woods. After this you start to settle down and productiveness reaches another level, and as the cycle proceeds you become more interested in preserving status quo and find the balance. Rash tempers do not become you as much anymore and you see the bigger picture, so to speak. The thing is, every religion has been violent in its early days, and every nation too (and I’m talking nations here, not populations, which is not a construction in the same way). The problem today is that we have one of the youngest nations in conflict with one of the youngest religions – and they hold basically all power. Both sides need a babysitter at this point, or a teacher. Teenagers gone wild, and they accept no parenting from any direction.

What do you think about the Israeli ambassador’s behaviour at the exhibition in Stockholm last month?

Terrible. I’m sorry to say this and I do not mean to offend anyone, possibly apart from Mazel and Sharon. Art is a way of dealing with difficult topics, and Zvi Mazel was not to judge the value of that piece of the exhibition better than the artist himself, or any other spectator for that matter. I can understand that it stirred a lot of emotions and I could have forgiven him for his action, but I cannot forgive his defence of that action. And for Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister (and, let us not forget, the former Foreign Minister) of a supposedly modern society to officially support this kind of action is deeply disturbing! A travesty of governmental power and a mockery of political communications and relations. If a piece of Israeli art would offend, say the French, would it be correct of their ambassador simply to go there and destroy it? And would that be accepted by the Israeli government? Of course not. No nation would consider that proper procedure, were it the other way around.
What then, in Sharon’s opinion, should be an ambassador’s role and rights? I mean; these are two grown up men we are talking about, with high political positions – if they cannot be rational and communicative, then who can we expect to be? Talk about setting a moral example supporting rouge justice. Mazel broke Swedish law (which, I daresay, is not unlike any other nation’s law in this matter) by destroying a piece of art at a museum, and was applauded by his own government. Perspective, please!
There are so many things and patterns that need to be destroyed to make this a better world – that was simply not one of them. Nor, I might add, are human beings.

In addition to music you have some academic education. What you can tell us about it, and how does it affect your music?

Knowledge is the best companion you can ever have. This thing is, I hated school when I grew up, but I seemed to have a talent for it. I never felt at ease with the whole school situation, and I always made life miserable for myself and my teachers in class. I had this feeling that either everybody else are stupid, or I am the one who is stupid and everybody else normal; I am just to stupid to see their way. All-in-all, a feeling of intellectual and moral alienation I guess.

I went to a three year Music College after our nine years of elementary school. Music College was important because you found other people you could relate to. I formed this weird theatre group/society called The Rusty Roses Crisis Theatre that never really developed further than a few very odd plays that were never performed live.

After Music College I went to a Writing course for a year, and there I met Johanna, still my wife eleven years later, who was attending a Drama course.

I studied Aesthetics for a year, and this is where I wrote “Handful of Nothing” during a pottery class, I remember it vividly :)

After this I entered the Industrial Design and Product Development (a brave experiment course combining the artistic view and the inventing) at University College, during which we recorded our first album “Entropia” and I visited a weapon factory, an experience that would contribute to our second album.

From there I went to the Gothemburg University and studied a course called Peacework (combining international relations and politics with humanism and philosophic takes on the contemporary global situation), during which I wrote the essay Water War, that would be the foundation for the concept of “One Hour by the Concrete Lake”.

During the Peacework course I became increasingly interested in radiation and its effects on living organisms and nature, so I took a course in Radiation Physics (with the subtitle Ionizing Radiation in Society) at the University of Gothemburg, during the recording of “One Hour by the Concrete Lake”.

After this I decided I wanted to study language again, since I have a love for words, so I studied English at the University of Gavle, where I also took some courses in Ethics, Gender in Education etc. We had our first tour in the middle of my first year here.

During all these years of studying (and I am still stunned that I have studied so much since I hate school and all) I hava always had the feeling that I’m lost and have no clue where I am going – all these weird courses, seeming diametrically opposed to each other in many ways, but during the development of “One Hour by the Concrete Lake” it all started to make sense to me and I begun to see a pattern. I think Pain of Salvation is a band where all these aspects of life suddenly make sense and can be very useful. All these courses have formed my point of departure knowledge-wise, and I think that is something that makes Pain of Salvation interesting to so many people. These courses tell me what I find important: the merging of art and science, of knowledge and inspiration, mind and heart.

If you weren’t musician what would you like to be?

You mean I’m nothing more than a musician now? ;)
Well, I would be something else that is not a “real job” probably, considering my areas of interest. I work a lot with computers and art, but I think writing would be the most important area for me, should the music give me time for it.

The big question for the end, is there a chance to see Pain of Salvation in Israel on the next European tour of the band?

I would really love to come and play our music, and I always wanted to see Israel, so keep your fingers crossed that we will get some offers. That said, I must add that it is not without worry, and even a touch of fear, that we consider the idea of playing in Israel. Not as the situation is today, with the air filled with hostility; and since we are not completely supportive of the Israeli governmental politics we probably wouldn’t feel too relaxed politically. But I am simply unwilling to submit to the misleading contemporary, however unspoken, concept that being opposed to Israeli politics means you are anti-Semite, just as little as being against Bush means you are pro-terrorism. Those leaps of logic are huge, and very dangerous! I strongly oppose violence of any kind, just as I oppose narrow-mindedness and political persecution, and nationalistic and patriotic hypocrisy and ethnocentrism. It must end, and walls are not the answer. FBI agents on the flights are not the answer. Bombing is not the answer. Fear is not the answer.
Understanding is.
A worn down and naïve concept? Well… Sometimes the truth starts to sound like a cliché, simply because in our hearts we have known it for so very long. We just fail to live by it.

Thank you for your time, it was a great pleasure to do this interview with you.

The pleasure was mine, and regardless of my answer in the previous question, please keep in mind that I still hope for a situation where we can come and play in Israel, I would really like for that to happen! In fact, just the other day we received a request from some Israeli guys who wished to start a fan club, so there’s definitely an interest that goes both ways, right?

To all our Israeli fans I want to add: take care until we meet! And once again: I hope I haven’t pissed people off with my political answers. I thought many times about simply skipping those questions, but I figured silence was never a good way of dealing with problems. I have tried to find my way through these difficult issues and mine fields, but as we all know, language is a very blunt tool and I can only hope you see what I am trying to express.
I only wish for every human being to be respected and have good lives without fear and hate, regardless of race, nationality or creed. But for that to happen, I think we must all start to make amends and learn the gentle, but difficult, arts of forgiving, modesty and understanding. It has a word. Empathy.

The hebrew version of the interview with Daniel Gildenlow

The Official site of Pain of Salvation

Email of the band