Left Hand Solution Interview

Left Hand Solution

I called Erik Barthold (drummer for Sweden’s Left Hand Solution) on a Wednesday to set up an interview for the following Saturday. Instead we ended up doing it right there and then and everything seemed to go wrong. I’m not one to usually believe in superstition but after this there has to be some powers that were against us doing it on the spot instead of waiting. Erik's phone started to act funny and he had to call me and I had to call him just to be able to finish the interview. Left Hand Solution for those of you who aren’t familiar with them have so far released “Shadowdance” (MCD, Massproduktion 1994), “Fevered” (CD, Massproduktion 1996 – also on Nuclear Blast 1997) and “Light Shines Black” (CD, Massproduktion 2001) plus some singles. Having to describe their sound you could say that ther're doom metal going for a goth rock sound. Together with Erik, Mariana Holmberg on vocals, Janne Wiklund on guitar and Peter Selin on bass complete the line up. Despite the problems we had doing this interview I did get something worthwhile out of it.

-Anders Ekdahl

The way I understand it, it took a while to finish the new record.
- Yes, that’s correct. We started talking about a new album already in 1997. Then our guitar player left us so there we stood without a guitar player. So we had to get a new one in, Janne Wiklund. 97 – 98 we started to write new songs and in December 98 we started to record the new songs. From there to the finished production it took some time. We had trouble finding studio time and the producer got other jobs that took time and which he prioritised. When the record finally was ready to be released in 1999 our label Massproduktion (www.massproduktion.com) had some financial problems. They signed a deal with MNW/House Of Kicks and it was meant that the record should have been out late fall 2000 but it ended up being released early 2001.

It has been a while since the “Fevered” album was released. Does it feel like you start anew with this new album or is there still a foundation left from the “Fevered” album to continue building on?
- Well, it doesn’t feel like we start from the beginning again. It’s more like that the band has been put on ice for a while. It feels as if we start from where we left off with the last record. We have not played out that much either in the last two years because we’ve focused more on the recording of the album. So it’s more like we continue were we where a couple of years back. We’ve been waiting for the record to be mixed and everything else but I don’t feel like we’re starting all over again.

Given the time you’ve been away where do you feel that Left Hand Solution is today in terms of recognition. Are you well known, just known or hardly known?
- That’s a hard one to answer. The way I understand it is that the name is spread all over the world. It’s a large crowd that knows about the name but they are spread over a huge area. When we released the first MCD and then the full length we received a hell of a lot of fan mail from all over the place: Malaysia, The Scandinavian countries, from all over Europe and from countries you never ever had heard of. We may not be the world’s best-known band but the name is out there.

“Fevered” was also released by Nuclear Blast for abroad. Is there any deal like this made for the new album too?
- So far it’s only MNW/HOK that handles that. The deal with Nuclear Blast was a license deal. We’ll have to see if that happens for this new one too. There seems to be a great deal of interest for this new one.

When your previous vocalist Kicki Höijertz left the band did you consciously look for another woman to replace her?
- At that time it felt like we wanted another woman. She left right after we had recorded the MCD, which must have been in 1994. We only tried female vocalists and it felt like that was the way we wanted to continue.

Sometime I get a feeling that the attention gets misdirected when there’s a woman behind the mike and that the music comes in second place. Have you experienced that you get more noticed because there’s a woman behind the mike than for your music?
- I don’t think we get more noticed because of it. I do think that when people notice us they notice us more because of that. I don’t think it matters that much. There are bands in all different genres that have male or female vocalists. We just thought it seemed appropriate with female vocals to the songs.

What response have you been receiving on the new album “Light Shines Black”?
- It varies. Must of the reviews I’ve seen so far have been positive. It’s been all from people thinking it’s good to those who don’t because they feel that we’re not as much doom metal as we used to be. Comments on the vocals have been everything from that it’s good to it being crap. The majority of comments have so far been positive.
- That the criticism has been both positive and negative is an indicator of… it’s not indifference, it’s criticism in both directions.

Your hometown Sundsvall (in the north of Sweden – AE) seems to be a pretty good town to be a musician in. What is it that makes it so good?
- There are a lot of different genres of music. Everything from folk music to pop to metal. There’s a good camaraderie between the bands no matter what you play. You socialise over barriers. But a lot of people are also leaving Sundsvall. I haven’t lived there in a while. It makes it harder to rehearse for gigs and such with the members of Left Hand Solution being spread all over the place. Sundsvall is good the way the different genres are covered. Then there’s a rock club called Pipeline that is run by Sundsvalls Musikforum and they arrange everything from metal gigs to classical concerts.

What does it mean for the music scene that you have something like Musikforum as well as a local label?
- It means a lot. The record label has its office in the same building as Musikforum so there’s a close co-operation between the two. The label gets to have a close relationship with the bands. It’s like a small music empire.

Today, when so many records are released each day it has become more important to stand out just to catch the eye of the consumer. What have you done to make people notice your record?
- I’ve been thinking about that. It’s so damn hard to do something like that. There’s not so much else you can do because everything has already been done. You get CD-Rom tracks, something we too have on the new album, and people do extreme things. You have covers wrapped in candy paper. So we felt more like we’d just release the album and not try to do too much about the CD package and just hope that people like the music. The good old way.

Just like you said there’s a CD-Rom track on your new CD too, a video of the Eurythmics’ track “Missionary Man”. What made you include that one?
- We thought about doing a cover and even release it as a single. We thought about doing something as an appetiser for the new album and release a kind of single, mostly as a fun thing to do. And then everything got delayed. When we talked about what song to choose our singer Mariana said that she wanted to do something with Eurythmics since she was a fan. She played us the “Missionary Man” song and asked if we couldn’t do that one to which we said OK. Then the label came up with the idea to do a video for the song.
- There’s a different version of the video that was on the single where there’s a clown in it too. When we were about to release the “Light Shines Black” album we thought about not including the video because of the clown. It’s the same video, it’s just that there’s a clown cut in that runs rampage. It sounded cool on paper but the end result wasn’t. For the album we decided to just go with the video footage of us playing and leaving the clown out. I’m happy with how it looks now.

The song writing seems to be spread over more members this time instead of it being you who’ve written it all. Is this something that has come natural?
- Yes. I think you can hear it on the record. If you listen to the songs I’ve written on the new album you can hear that they are pretty much the same way as the one on the previous one. On the “Fevered” album it was mostly the bass player and I who wrote the songs together and we ended up with me writing the songs and the rest of the band liked them. It was not a conscious effort from my side to write all the songs. It just happened that way. With time the other members have started to write their own songs which means that we now do much more together as a band.

Where do you think you’d end up when compared to other bands stylistically?
- Filed under metal. But I don’t know where on the metal scale. Heavy metal is one description I feel fits the music even if it might have different associations. There’s much to the term heavy metal today but I feel that the word heavy and metal fit us.

You’ve named your new album “Light Shines Black”. Is there a deeper meaning to the title?
- It’s a play with words. Maybe it’s a little too pessimistic. It gives a mood to the record. It’s down tuned and pessimistic. If anything shines it’s that.
- It may look dark but there’s a light somewhere.

What do you want to come out of Left Hand Solution?
- The most foreboding is to sell enough records and have a label that supports us so that we can keep the music going. We all have jobs on the side to support us. What we wish for is to be able to only play. It’s not easy today with all the records that are being released. We wish that we can expand our business so that we can do the band full time. On our agenda for the near future is to get out and play. What we want is to get out and play as much as possible and make as much music as possible.


	..........

		Left Hand Solution I called Erik Barthold (drummer for Sweden’s Left Hand Solution) on a Wednesday to set up an interview for the following Saturday. Instead we ended up doing it right there and then and everything seemed to go wrong. I’m not one to usually believe in superstition but after this there has to be some powers that were against us doing it on the spot instead of waiting. Erik's phone started to act funny and he had to call me and I had to call him just to be able to finish the interview. Left Hand Solution for those of you who aren’t familiar with them have so far released “Shadowdance” (MCD, Massproduktion 1994), “Fevered” (CD, Massproduktion 1996 – also on Nuclear Blast 1997) and “Light Shines Black” (CD, Massproduktion 2001) plus some singles. Having to describe their sound you could say that ther're doom metal going for a goth rock sound. Together with Erik, Mariana Holmberg on vocals, Janne Wiklund on guitar and Peter Selin on bass complete the line up. Despite the problems we had doing this interview I did get something worthwhile out of it. -Anders Ekdahl The way I understand it, it took a while to finish the new record. - Yes, that’s correct. We started talking about a new album already in 1997. Then our guitar player left us so there we stood without a guitar player. So we had to get a new one in, Janne Wiklund. 97 – 98 we started to write new songs and in December 98 we started to record the new songs. From there to the finished production it took some time. We had trouble finding studio time and the producer got other jobs that took time and which he prioritised. When the record finally was ready to be released in 1999 our label Massproduktion (www.massproduktion.com) had some financial problems. They signed a deal with MNW/House Of Kicks and it was meant that the record should have been out late fall 2000 but it ended up being released early 2001. It has been a while since the “Fevered” album was released. Does it feel like you start anew with this new album or is there still a foundation left from the “Fevered” album to continue building on? - Well, it doesn’t feel like we start from the beginning again. It’s more like that the band has been put on ice for a while. It feels as if we start from where we left off with the last record. We have not played out that much either in the last two years because we’ve focused more on the recording of the album. So it’s more like we continue were we where a couple of years back. We’ve been waiting for the record to be mixed and everything else but I don’t feel like we’re starting all over again. Given the time you’ve been away where do you feel that Left Hand Solution is today in terms of recognition. Are you well known, just known or hardly known? - That’s a hard one to answer. The way I understand it is that the name is spread all over the world. It’s a large crowd that knows about the name but they are spread over a huge area. When we released the first MCD and then the full length we received a hell of a lot of fan mail from all over the place: Malaysia, The Scandinavian countries, from all over Europe and from countries you never ever had heard of. We may not be the world’s best-known band but the name is out there. “Fevered” was also released by Nuclear Blast for abroad. Is there any deal like this made for the new album too? - So far it’s only MNW/HOK that handles that. The deal with Nuclear Blast was a license deal. We’ll have to see if that happens for this new one too. There seems to be a great deal of interest for this new one. When your previous vocalist Kicki Höijertz left the band did you consciously look for another woman to replace her? - At that time it felt like we wanted another woman. She left right after we had recorded the MCD, which must have been in 1994. We only tried female vocalists and it felt like that was the way we wanted to continue. Sometime I get a feeling that the attention gets misdirected when there’s a woman behind the mike and that the music comes in second place. Have you experienced that you get more noticed because there’s a woman behind the mike than for your music? - I don’t think we get more noticed because of it. I do think that when people notice us they notice us more because of that. I don’t think it matters that much. There are bands in all different genres that have male or female vocalists. We just thought it seemed appropriate with female vocals to the songs. What response have you been receiving on the new album “Light Shines Black”? - It varies. Must of the reviews I’ve seen so far have been positive. It’s been all from people thinking it’s good to those who don’t because they feel that we’re not as much doom metal as we used to be. Comments on the vocals have been everything from that it’s good to it being crap. The majority of comments have so far been positive. - That the criticism has been both positive and negative is an indicator of… it’s not indifference, it’s criticism in both directions. Your hometown Sundsvall (in the north of Sweden – AE) seems to be a pretty good town to be a musician in. What is it that makes it so good? - There are a lot of different genres of music. Everything from folk music to pop to metal. There’s a good camaraderie between the bands no matter what you play. You socialise over barriers. But a lot of people are also leaving Sundsvall. I haven’t lived there in a while. It makes it harder to rehearse for gigs and such with the members of Left Hand Solution being spread all over the place. Sundsvall is good the way the different genres are covered. Then there’s a rock club called Pipeline that is run by Sundsvalls Musikforum and they arrange everything from metal gigs to classical concerts. What does it mean for the music scene that you have something like Musikforum as well as a local label? - It means a lot. The record label has its office in the same building as Musikforum so there’s a close co-operation between the two. The label gets to have a close relationship with the bands. It’s like a small music empire. Today, when so many records are released each day it has become more important to stand out just to catch the eye of the consumer. What have you done to make people notice your record? - I’ve been thinking about that. It’s so damn hard to do something like that. There’s not so much else you can do because everything has already been done. You get CD-Rom tracks, something we too have on the new album, and people do extreme things. You have covers wrapped in candy paper. So we felt more like we’d just release the album and not try to do too much about the CD package and just hope that people like the music. The good old way. Just like you said there’s a CD-Rom track on your new CD too, a video of the Eurythmics’ track “Missionary Man”. What made you include that one? - We thought about doing a cover and even release it as a single. We thought about doing something as an appetiser for the new album and release a kind of single, mostly as a fun thing to do. And then everything got delayed. When we talked about what song to choose our singer Mariana said that she wanted to do something with Eurythmics since she was a fan. She played us the “Missionary Man” song and asked if we couldn’t do that one to which we said OK. Then the label came up with the idea to do a video for the song. - There’s a different version of the video that was on the single where there’s a clown in it too. When we were about to release the “Light Shines Black” album we thought about not including the video because of the clown. It’s the same video, it’s just that there’s a clown cut in that runs rampage. It sounded cool on paper but the end result wasn’t. For the album we decided to just go with the video footage of us playing and leaving the clown out. I’m happy with how it looks now. The song writing seems to be spread over more members this time instead of it being you who’ve written it all. Is this something that has come natural? - Yes. I think you can hear it on the record. If you listen to the songs I’ve written on the new album you can hear that they are pretty much the same way as the one on the previous one. On the “Fevered” album it was mostly the bass player and I who wrote the songs together and we ended up with me writing the songs and the rest of the band liked them. It was not a conscious effort from my side to write all the songs. It just happened that way. With time the other members have started to write their own songs which means that we now do much more together as a band. Where do you think you’d end up when compared to other bands stylistically? - Filed under metal. But I don’t know where on the metal scale. Heavy metal is one description I feel fits the music even if it might have different associations. There’s much to the term heavy metal today but I feel that the word heavy and metal fit us. You’ve named your new album “Light Shines Black”. Is there a deeper meaning to the title? - It’s a play with words. Maybe it’s a little too pessimistic. It gives a mood to the record. It’s down tuned and pessimistic. If anything shines it’s that. - It may look dark but there’s a light somewhere. What do you want to come out of Left Hand Solution? - The most foreboding is to sell enough records and have a label that supports us so that we can keep the music going. We all have jobs on the side to support us. What we wish for is to be able to only play. It’s not easy today with all the records that are being released. We wish that we can expand our business so that we can do the band full time. On our agenda for the near future is to get out and play. What we want is to get out and play as much as possible and make as much music as possible.