Recent interviews
Jared James Nichols was in Stockholm a few weeks ago and Metal Covenant was given some time to talk to him about his latest record Louder Than Fate.
In late 2023, you told me that you already at that point had a bunch of songs already ready to go for a full album, but in the end now, how many of those, like, three-year-old songs ended up on the album?
Yeah, it’s funny. I mean, I never stopped writing. So these songs, they kind of like lived with me for a minute, and I felt how they were going, and I have to say three of them made the record. So if you hear the song Pretend, if you hear the song Ghost, and if you hear the song Looks Like That Felt Good, those three, they kept on there. And I don’t think it was because I was so in love with them. It was just I never got sick of them, you know. (Laughs) And then, obviously, when you’re making a record, it feels good to make sure you have a good flow, and so I kept those on.
And all those other songs that you had ready to go, do you keep them in a vault somewhere?
I keep them. I do. And also what’s cool, man, is there’s a few other artists that I work with. You know, friends of mine and stuff, for writing. And there’s been a few songs that I’ve had kind of saved. And I go, “You know what? That might not work for me, but I think this could be a cool song for you.”. So I’ve done a few co-writes with some of the songs. But I keep everything. And listen, who knows if anyone will ever hear it? But I have it.
Some artists say, “I’ll write ten songs for the album, and all those ten songs will end up on the album. I kind of have no bonus tracks at all.”.
Yeah. Actually, for this record too, we did a few different bonus tracks. And we actually recorded more songs than ending up on the album. So we ended up recording, I think four more tracks that didn’t make it on the record, just ‘cause I didn’t feel like it really fit at the end. I like to just let things, like, live and see where it organically wants to go.
So is that the only specific thing you look for when you write a song for a record?
I think so. And especially nowadays with records, it’s interesting, because there’s so many people that just release song by song now with a single. But with this record, I wanted to make sure that it had a feel and an arc, and it felt like it was going somewhere. And some of the songs, it would be almost like I would feel like they wouldn’t contribute to the overall record. And they weren’t standalone something that I cared about enough to go, “It has to be there.”.
Could you eventually, in the end, 10 years from now, start to release standalone singles instead of making albums?
You never know. I don’t know. I might. I don’t know what it’ll be like. I mean, I already have people now that I talk to, friends of mine, that are doing great, and they say, “Oh, man. It’s just back to singles, man. We’re just doing singles, and we don’t even care to do a record anymore.”. So I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I mean, I like making records. I think it’s such a beautiful process. To me, it’s the equivalent of, you know, something very deep and personal that you finally get to unleash. Records are an amazing snapshot where you’re at at the moment. So I hear it, and I go, “Man, yeah.”. I remember exactly where I was when I wrote this, or I recorded it, you know, which is cool.
And I hope rock ‘n’ roll never gets to a point where it’s singles only. I can’t keep track. Actually, when bands are releasing a song here and a song there, I’m like, “Oh, they released a song four months ago? I didn’t know.”.
Well, what’s crazy too is it’s almost gonna turn the art of songs, or what’s left of the art of it into, like, Instagram. “Oh, here is a song.” – “Oh, okay, cool. Next, next.”. There is no longevity with that, I feel like. So it’s really tough.
From one thing to another. As a guitar player, first and foremost, I would say, but also as a vocalist, how important are lyrics to you on the records?
Lyrics are very important, actually, I think. I think that it’s grown on me, though. I mean, I’ve always loved songs. I’ve always loved lyrics, I’ve always loved real true and powerful stuff. And, you know, for a long time, especially for me, making these records… My first record (Old Glory & The Wild Revival) I made with Eddie Kramer and, you know, to get to this point where I’m at now… Of course I’ve always cared about lyrics, but in the style that I love I can confidently say that, you know, blues and stuff like that, it’s not the deepest well lyrically, so it’s very important for me now to try and figure out how I can say more and how I can express myself better that way, because just like with the guitar or just like with a riff or a song, being able to do that is so important, and I wanna continue to develop.
Before this interview we talked a little bit about listening to your own voice. What about reading your own lyrics?
Sometimes it makes me feel dumb. (Laughs) ‘Cause you read your lyrics and you go… Well, first off, “What does that even mean?”. What I kind of like too though is now that I’ve been on this lyric kick… Like Ryan (Rice), the drummer, he reads books and poems, and he breaks them down, and he was showing me some of that stuff. There is a really beautiful art in language and words. Universal, you know. Like not just language specific. But what’s funny is, like, earlier today, we were listening to Stone Temple Pilots because Brian (Weaver, bass) just got off tour with them, and I was listening to all the lyrics, and some of that stuff’s crazy, and you’re like, “What does this even mean?”, and then it’s almost like you have to interpret it yourself. So it’s just lyrics are a trip, man.
Is it something you think you will get better at?
I hope so.
Well, a lot of musicians reach their highs in their 20s.
Right, and I’m past that, yeah. You know what’s funny, though? I care about different things now. Like in my 20s, I didn’t care about anything besides being a deadly guitar player, and that’s it. Everything else just doesn’t matter to me, as long as I could be the baddest guitar player on the stage, or I could do that. But then all of a sudden I started saying, “Well, what about there’s got to be more? What about the song? Or what about this?”. So it’s started to evolve. And to be honest, it’s still evolving. So I couldn’t sit here and tell you, “Oh, my gosh! I’m gonna get so much better.”. But also I never stop, and I never feel like I’ve ever had that feeling of being like, “Well, I guess this is as good as it’s gonna get.”, ‘cause I just love learning and love growing.
So tell me. What does the title mean to you? Louder Than Fate.
Well, it’s interesting you bring that up too. It’s funny, people talk about fate, like, “Well, it’s my fate. It was always gonna end up this way.”. A lot of people think that their life is gonna be predictable, and they think that every single thing is just kind of gonna maybe fall into place for them, right? Well, I always thought to myself, as long as I had music, and as long as, specifically, I could play the guitar, and I had that kind of emotional therapy playing guitar, I could do anything and I’ll be happy. So with fate, it’s almost like, “Fuck fate. I’ll be louder than fate.”, and I wanted it to represent almost this title of, you know, “No matter what comes up, I don’t care. I’m ready for it. I’m louder than it.”. And that was the title. I felt like it was just kind of more of an attitude title than anything.
Did you ever think about, like, losing the word Louder and use, like, Stronger Than Fate, or Cooler Than Fate, or whatever?
You know, I thought about it. I was like, “What’s a good almost like adjective to describe it?”. But the reason I thought Louder too is like, of course you can think about that musically, but you can also think about that like, “Your spirit. You’re louder.”. Stronger Than Fate is cool. Maybe it’s a little too, like, tough. But yeah, Louder Than Fate, it just stuck with me. It was pretty cool.
And you always pick an album title separate from the songs. Hence no title tracks on the albums. Never a title track. Is that something deliberate?
Yeah, because I’ve never really thought to myself, especially with these songs, I’m kind of living with them, and I’m never like, “Oh, my gosh! This song: Easy Come, Easy Go, or Honey Forgive Me, that needs to be the record.”. I never had that feeling. So I just never did that. And when I was thinking about the record, I looked at the song titles, and I was like, “Man, what am I trying to say?”. But then it just came back to Louder Than Fate. That’s a good catch though. Yeah, I’ve never done that.
And about recording the album. It’s two guys producing the album. Why didn’t you stick to one?
Well, like I said, I’m always, like, writing, and I’m always doing different stuff, and there’s a producer friend of mine, Jay Ruston, who did the majority of the record. All the stuff I was tracking with them, I was tracking with the guys in the band. And that was in Los Angeles. So we were able to record at Dave Grohl’s studio.
Jared turns to Brian, who is sitting in the same room as us at the moment.
What was the studio called we recorded at with the other dude?
Brian: Oh, it was the drummer from…
Jared remembers.
…A Perfect Circle (Josh Freese).
Brian: Yeah, it was his home studio.
Back to Jared.
I don’t know if it had a name. I always forget it. Anyways, we did Los Angeles recordings. That’s with the band. And it was amazing. But while I’m living in Nashville, obviously surrounded by amazing studios, I have some friends I was writing with. There were a few songs, which was Killing Time, Looks Like That Felt Good, as well as Show Me. So those were the songs that I did there. And they felt really strong. And I really liked the versions we cut, so instead of clogging it up and saying, “Man, I need to re-record these with the band.”, I thought to myself, “We might need to re-record them.”, but when I put it in the perspective of the whole record, I felt like having a little bit of a scene change kind of helped it a little bit. They gave it a little bit of a different vibe. So instead of just this long-winded record that kind of had the same sonics everywhere, it just took it out just a little bit.
As you make the record, what is it like to kind of adjust to a producer’s take on things?
What was cool about Jay is the fact that he didn’t say a lot in the ways of, “Change this, change this.”. He almost would just listen, and he would go, “Man, play it again.”, and then he’d be like, “I think we should make that longer.”, or, “I think this should be a little shorter.”. And then we would talk about the sonics. Whereas those other few songs that were written were with a guy named Roger (Alan Nichols), and Roger would sometimes say, “Hey, man. I think you need to try and tap more into your emotional side here.”, or, “I think you need to really think about what you’re trying to say here.”. It was just two completely different takes. Where Jay was like, “Let’s go, let’s record. Bam!”, Roger was a little bit like, “Let’s talk about it.”. So it was kind of hard, to be honest, because it was almost like you had to switch lanes, and sometimes that’s not easy.
And you made a switch to Frontiers Records. Tell me what a different record company can do for an artist.
Well, a lot. Yeah, a lot, really. You know, it’s different. I remember when I started talking to Frontiers. The coolest thing that they said in the meetings initially was, “We want you on our roster.”. They didn’t say, “We want to change this or try this.”. They just said, “Jared. We are fans and we want you on the roster.”. And I think it’s so cool when you have a label that has people that are passionate about music, right? And there was a lot of new people at Frontiers that I was working with, in America, and there are people that I’ve known from other spots, so it felt really cool to team up with Frontiers. I never felt any sort of weird pressure, I never felt like a negativity. It’s been an awesome experience. It helps me push further in my endeavors when the people that are working behind the scenes are as passionate as I am.
Are they trying to pull another record out of you anytime soon?
Oh, you know they are. (Laughs) For sure, for sure. I mean, they were already talking about that before we even released this record. So yeah, we’ll see what happens here.
The front cover is in the classic vein of rock, I think. Tell me about your idea of having a front cover where you’re live in a cool pose.
Well, we played a show on our last tour, our headline tour, and the last night we were in London. It was the last show of the tour, and we were so beat up. And so random. It was a photographer we didn’t know. Someone we had no idea who it was. But he was at the venue for my press list or whatever. The guy shows up, and a few days later we see these pictures, and my manager sends them to me, and he’s like, “These are great.”. I was like, “Those are really cool.”. You know, what I always loved on, like, ‘70s stuff, even on the studio stuff, you would see these cool live shots. Like I love, like, Johnny Winter and all this stuff. And I felt like these pictures really had the essence and it kind of like captured the vibe. People take amazing pictures all the time, but these ones, they just felt cool. So we reached out to the guy, and he was like, “Are you kidding?”. You know, he couldn’t believe it. All the design and the layout felt really old school. Yeah, so I was happy with that. And when you open up the gatefold, you get the pictures of the band and everything. It felt classic.
When you perform the songs live now, in what way do you perform the songs? Are you trying to stick as close as you can to the record, or are you diverging to different paths sometimes?
We’re staying pretty close to the record. So even tonight for the show, we’re gonna play the record as intended. Now there is a few spots where we… You know, we’ll stretch it out a little bit, we’ll play a little bit more, maybe double the chorus. But it’s pretty close to the record, which is cool.
By Tobbe – Published October 17th, 2026
Metal Covenant sat down with Zinny Zan, frontman of recently started constellation Zan/Cody, to talk about the duo’s first album, Beautiful ‘N Damned.
How did you first come up with this idea to go back to working with Harry Cody again, and start a new thing called Zan/Cody?
Well, we’ve been back and forth for a couple of years, checking each other out. You know, “How are you doing? Merry Christmas. Happy Birthday.”. Stuff like that. So we’ve been in talks just to see how we are. We did a cool thing many years back, and that stays with you because there weren’t so many bands doing the things that we did back then. I think Europe, Roxette, and us were the three bands that really hit America at that time. We hit the Billboard charts, and so on and so forth. Harry complimented on something I did with the Zinny Zan album (Lullabies For The Masses) that I did with Stefan Bergström from Skintrade. He said, “Well, you’re not screaming that much anymore. It’s a mature voice.”. It was nicely put. And then I said something like, “If you ever wanna come by and do some guitar stuff…”, and he said, “I’m open to that.”, and that made me think, and I go like, “If Harry is open to that…”. I would never invite him to do a thing with me, a Zinny Zan thing. Hey, we had a band together, equal grounds, so I said, “Harry. I will not do this that way, but how would you feel about if we just threw some ideas back and forth, and if it sticks, we do like Zan/Cody, whatever?”. And that’s what it ended up being. So that’s what we did. He threw one or two songs at me, and I did the same, and then he reworked a little bit of mine, put his things into it, and I did the same with his things. And then we said, “We already have a four-track mini thing here, so should we aim for an album?”. And then it became six tracks, and on and on it went, and then we were like, “We got an album.”, and then he goes, “Zinny. Do you know people?”. ‘Cause America is dead when it comes to hard rock, you know. So I said, “Well, let me take this a spin around Europe and the record companies.”. And that’s what I did, and in the end we ended up with Frontiers. So that’s how we started it. At first it was like, “Is the spark that we used to have still there?”. And it absolutely was. And it was easy, because we both felt like, “Wow! It’s so easy to write this music together.”. And we absolutely understood and had respect for each other. He’d go like, “I understand if you don’t want to sing it like that.”. So there was no plan at all, and just seeing like, “Can we write together? What comes out? Is it good enough?”. And we loved it. So there was no plan like, “Okay, let’s do an album like this.”. So we threw in pretty much everything but the kitchen sink. You know, some songs are a little heavier, some are a little softer, and so on. And that’s just what came out of our hearts when we started playing together again. So no master plan, and no strategic thing here or there, or, “Let’s sound a little bit like Shotgun Messiah.”. Well, that’s inevitable, of course. We both played in that band, and Harry is a very specific guitar player, so he has his signature all over it. And same with my voice. You know, I’m not a traditional hard rock singer. I don’t have that voice. I can’t sing pretty and fantastically like Sebastian Bach or other people. I have more like an attitude in my voice, so, you know, that’s what you get.
And I understand, of course, that you have the integrity too as experienced musicians to come up with something that’s good enough to put down on an album because you don’t wanna be ashamed of yourselves.
No, no. And I’ve seen it. You know, there’s always people. You can never please everyone. And I’ve seen that some people are saying, “Oh, pathetic cash grab.”, and I go like, “Well, if it was a cash grab, we probably would have played the first album on tour and trying to make as much money as possible.”. We put a lot of effort into this one. And we don’t know if people want Zan/Cody. People probably will say, “Oh, it isn’t Shotgun Messiah.”, and, “Well, you’re right. It isn’t. It’s just two of the four people there.”. But you know, you can never please everyone. We threw something at the wall and, “Let’s see what sticks.”, you know.
If you guys would have tried to really copy the first Shotgun Messiah record today, would you have really pulled that thing off with good songs, or would it just have been impossible?
Harry might disagree, but I would say that that would have been impossible, because let’s not forget that what we did back then, what we had inside us, was what made it a nerve. What we have inside us today, we show on this album. We don’t have exactly that, and to copy something that doesn’t really come from the heart, and you just start feel like, “We should do what we did before.”, never comes out good. Can we sing those songs? Yeah, I can still scream and do those songs, but that’s not where I am today, really. Recently we did a festival, Sweden Rock Festival, and you have this amount of time, but when we go out playing later in the fall, we will do some clubs in Sweden around the biggest cities, we will probably play more Shotgun Messiah songs as well, and put them in there, and do the things that people wanna hear as well. And that was never in our interest either, not from Harry or me. Of course you wanna see what’s in you today, and what we can achieve today, and not go back and see, like, “Oh, what did we do?”. Both Harry and I, we’re not that nostalgic. Of course we’re proud of our heritage. We know what we did, and we thought that was good back then, but let’s see what we can do now. So going back was never a thought.
Did you at some point think that this thing was kind of a now-or-never situation to you?
I would say yes. Especially when it comes to me and Harry, yes. Because, maybe 10 years back, there were talks about a Shotgun Messiah reunion with the original, with me on vocals and also with Tim (Skold) on vocals. So it would have been both because Shotgun Messiah, you know, has done two fine albums without me. But if it was gonna be a reunion, it would have been like, you know, start with me and then end up with Tim on vocals during the concert. There were talks, but it didn’t go through for different reasons. And since that passed… Hey, I’m 62, you know. You never know. You might drop dead tomorrow, or get run over by a truck, and Harry lives in the US and I live in Sweden. So I would say that this was probably the final thing, and go like, “Either we do it or we don’t.”. And we just signed up for a three-album deal, so this is not a one-off album just like, “Hey, buddy. Let’s do a rock album together.”. It’s nothing like that. We’re very serious about it, absolutely.
Before you just said a three-album deal, I was really thinking about, “Convince me now, Zinny, that this is not a one-thing shot.”.
There you go. You just got it. (Laughs) And honestly, I think that’s a signum for both me and Harry. Well, I hadn’t seen Harry in many, many years. He has been very determined with Shotgun Messiah. He still has Shotgun Messiah with Tim. They have an album that they have written. It’s not out because Tim is now back with Marilyn Manson again, earning some Marilyn money, and rightfully so. So Harry sticks to his guns. I kind of do as well. I had my time when I did some Swedish albums because I needed to get that out of my chest, and I thought, “Why haven’t I even tried?”. And I love trying. I’m never afraid of things. I know that the record company back then was like, “Hey. You’re singing in Swedish, it’s not hard rock, and you’re changing your name to your real name, Stagman. What the hell else can you do for not making this easy for us to sell?”, and I thought, “Well, it’s my artistic integrity. I would love to try to do this, and if you let me, I will show you that I can do this shit as well.”. So whenever I do a project, I’m absolutely all in. I never fool around. It’s very seldom. And same here. I never go out and do a lot of cover things, or cover gigs, or anything. I go every year with King’s Call because I’m a huge (Thin) Lizzy fan. I always go there. Pro bono, no money, nothing. I pay for it all myself going there. Just having a great time. You know, it’s more like a class reunion of rockers. (Laughs) It’s quite fun.
Could you in any way compare Beautiful ‘N Damned to anything you’ve done before, really?
No, I wouldn’t say. You know, you have a special thing with the people you write with. Back in the Shotgun Messiah days, there were a lot of Tim and Harry, and I came in at the last minute, and we changed some things to suit me. So it’s always a chemistry of things that you do. And that was the fun part with me and Harry now, because we wrote back then, and now when we wrote, “This is something new and different.”, but still we looked at each other and were like, “Hey, we do understand each other.”. And, at least for us, I don’t know if the listener might have another view of it, but we still think that we have a nerve to it. We have something interesting. It’s not a sandcastle. It is something there. And neither of us can say what it is, but it happens. So, I would say that I’ve never done an album like this before, no.
Tell me about the artwork of the album with a clock, a dagger, and a rose.
I’m always throwing things up here and there to find titles and stuff like that, and Harry was like, “Ah, mm, ah, maybe, maybe not.”, and then he goes, “Hey, Zinny. With all the effort you’re making into it, look and see if any of the song titles could work.”, and I wrote Beautiful ‘N Damned, and I go, “Well, Beautiful ‘N Damned.” – “Well, use that then.”, he said. He was all cool about it. I said like, “We have a couple of titles, and Beautiful ‘N Damned is very good.”. It’s a little dramatic, and, you know, it paints you a picture. It’s a deeper thing. The clock, of course, it’s the time. And the time is not always on your side when you’re 62 years old. (Laughs) And as you see, it’s like 2 to 12. So it’s a lot of thoughts that I had there. And then, of course, life can throw you roses and some knives. It was my artistic side that made that one.
I’m thinking about Bad Bad Man and She Walks With Violence. Those two songs are kind of different from the rest of the songs, and I would say that those two songs stick out the most. What purpose do they have on this album?
Just to broaden the album, I would say. The Bad Bad Man thing: Harry and I wrote a song called Shoot The World Away or Shot The World Away back in ‘89 while we were remixing the first Shotgun Messiah album. And it was in the vein of Bad Bad Man, and everyone at the record company was like, “Hey. Let’s not put that on here. We got a perfectly fine album.”. So we have always been flirting with that thing. And the blues thing, you know, sell your soul to the devil, whatever. And we thought like, “We need something that is a little more…”. Otherwise, it would be the same, the riff and this and that. She Walks With Violence is something that Harry had from the start, and showed me, and it was so wildly out there in my box of music, and I thought like, “Wow! All right. How do we approach this one?”. And Harry told me about it a little bit. Harry loves movies. He’s very cinemalistic like that. He loves cinema, loves the feelings, and so on and so forth. He had that thing, like a movie thing with this woman that you shouldn’t really go near, but she’s so darn beautiful that you have to anyway. And you know you’re heading for disaster, but it doesn’t matter. And I thought, “All right. Here we go.”. So that was a Harry thing that he came in with. Yeah, both really stand out, and in very different ways as well. Of course we had talks, like it’s the two of us, “It’s us. This is what we are.”. And we like it, so. There were other songs where people said like, ”That’s a more red thread. You should have that song instead.”, and we said, “Well, let’s save it for album number two then.”.
And you have thrown in a little ballad there too, Suffer City. Perhaps it could have been a hit back in the day.
It’s funny that you say that because that was the first song I sent to Harry. It was way back. When we started talking about it, he said like, “Okay, what do you have?”. I lost the woman (Karen) of my two children in 2023. She decided to take her own life. I never had that thought, ever. And going through that was extremely hard, and especially when you have to take care of two kids at the same time, and you don’t have your own time to grieve, or be angry or sad, or whatever, and you just try to make days go, and, you know, everything. The world keeps going and rolling, and you need to see, “Are your kids okay? How are we handling this?”. So that was a mad, sad, and extremely honest song about how I felt. Harry liked it, and I was in that zone when we spoke, and I said like, “How about this?”, and I knew that he has had ballads before that I refused to do with Shotgun Messiah, ‘cause I was the one back then saying, “No ballad on this album.”. And that was probably the worst decision in my life because ballads were the ones that were making it. So that’s me to blame. So, “Okay, let’s see what he can do with this.”, and he came out with this beautiful solo and the things around it. That was the first song I threw to him, I believe. The first or the second. And it came out so damn good. Harry says the same. “It’s one of my favorites on the album.”, he says. And I love to hear that. It’s nothing that anyone heard us do before. They never heard a ballad with me and Harry. I’ve read some stuff from people who have heard the album, that they love that song in many ways, and some people said that they liked it very much when we did it at Sweden Rock as well. Emotional and so on. And of course it is, because it’s extremely close to your feelings and your heart, and it’s written in a lovely and in an angry way at the same time.
In the second song, I Am The Shit, you sing Shotgun Messiah. Is that like a must, or is it really serious, or is it just a fun thing to do?
I listen to criticism, of course, but most of the time, I ain’t got nothing to prove. So I don’t fucking care. I can do whatever I want. You know, I’ve got nothing left to prove. I’m just having fun. That’s where I am in life now. Same with other things that happen in life. And I take it quite easily. It won’t kill you. There’s nothing that can’t be fucking fixed. It can be fixed. Take it easy, calm down, don’t be upset. And that’s the kind of life I’m trying to live. And, of course, things are put in perspective when someone close to you for 23 years disappears and so on, and in the middle of all that fucking chaos, later on, another woman walks into my life and I go, “No, this is way too early.”, but you can’t stop it because it’s love. And sometimes you go, “Oh, what is happening?, and all that. I Am The Shit is like that. I am the shit, it’s my life, I do what I want, I fucking love Shotgun Messiah, and it was great to have Harry back and so on. I like Shotgun Messiah with me in it, and I love Shotgun Messiah without me in it. You know, I have my companion Harry on my side whatever I’m singing there, and it’s just, let’s say, an easy reflection on my life, a little bit.
Did you and Harry at some point drop an idea that the band name was gonna be closer to something with Shotgun Messiah than Zan/Cody is? Obviously, like you said, Tim and Harry still have Shotgun Messiah, but you and Harry could be Shotgun Messiah as well. It’s two members either way.
Yeah, we absolutely could be. No, we both were very keen about these things, and I said, since Harry and Tim still have Shotgun Messiah, “Let’s not even go near it.”. Of course, we have the songs on the first album that I was on, and we will play them live, but other than that, don’t have too many assumptions or things around the Shotgun Messiah name as such because it still does exist. But at the same time, we’re saluting our past. I believe it’s Damn, the first single, a part of the solo there is a part from Nervous on the first album that he just redoes for homage and for the fans to see, like, “Oh shit, they still do that shit.”. You know, just a blink. No, we would never think that we’re gonna try to cash in on the Shotgun Messiah name in any way because that’s what he and Tim still work with.
When you and Harry talk about the debut album from Shotgun Messiah, do you look at the Shotgun Messiah version, or do you look at the Kingpin version sometimes?
Since it has been so broadly with Shotgun Messiah, we always talk about the Shotgun Messiah album. I can honestly say I haven’t heard the album for an extremely long time, but from what I recall, I like the Kingpin mix better than the Shotgun Messiah mix. I used to anyway. I can’t say today because it’s been many years since I heard it. But I know that I used to like the Kingpin version better. Not particularly the cover (Laughs), ‘cause that was quite hard to get away from. But the mixing and everything, that’s done by Tim, Harry, and Mats Olausson, that used to play with Yngwie (Malmsteen) and who produced it, I think I like that one a little bit better than the American version.
And a friend of yours, Chris Laney, is also part of this album. To what extent did he contribute to the songwriting and stuff like that?
To the songwriting, nothing at all. Arrangements, a few things, yes. He came in very late, my bad. Chris Laney and I have been friends for 25 years or something like that. We have had a band, Zan Clan, together. We wrote the music together and so on. I also know that he’s probably one of the biggest Shotgun Messiah fans ever. So when this came along, first of all, we were very hush-hush, Harry and I. So Harry and I knew about it, and my drummer Björn Höglund, who played a little bit with Easy Action, and played on the Stagman albums, and produced it with me, and co-wrote some stuff with me as well. There were the three of us, and then every now and then we threw in Nalle Påhlsson, who plays the bass on this, and he was like, “What’s going on here?”, and then I had to tell him, and I said, “Don’t say anything.”. And of course Chris Laney heard about it, and he goes like, “Zinny. For God’s sake, who’s gonna produce this?”, and I said, “Well, I’m gonna produce it with Harry.”, and, “Well, who’s gonna mix it then?”, and I said, “Well, we don’t know yet, ‘cause it’s very hush-hush.”, and he goes, “I want it.”, and I said, “Chris, no.”, and he goes like, “Why? Come on now. You know I’m the biggest fan.”, and I said, “Yeah, and that is exactly why you will not get that job.”. He couldn’t believe it, and he goes like, “What have I done?”, and I said, “You know I like you, you’re my dear friend, I admire your work. Some work I think pretty much sound the same, and it has become a Laney sound, and I don’t want to have a Laney sound as such. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I want Zan/Cody to stand out somewhat.”, and he said, “You have to give me one fucking shot at this, so you can say, ‘fuck off’, or whatever. But you have to give me a shot.”, and I said, “All right. Two songs, but don’t go down that memory lane to Shotgun Messiah, whatever you do, ‘cause that will not give you this job.”. It came back, and Harry’s like, “This is fucking amazing. Who’s this?”, and I go, “It’s Chris Laney.”, and he’s like, “I thought so, but you didn’t say anything.”, and I said, “No, I didn’t want anyone to have any prejudice.”, because I was too prejudiced myself anyway. And then I said, “Well, Chris, you improved yourself. You were right, I was wrong. You’re in.”. And he did an amazing job with this. Really good. Like I said, he did nothing in the songwriting, but he was in there with some of the arrangements here and there, and very good to have on board. You know, I love the guy. He’s like this little brother to me, and full of ideas, full of energy, always brings something to the table. Yeah, he’s a trooper.
As you said, you guys played your first gig at Sweden Rock in June. Tell me about that thing.
Amazing to do Sweden Rock. Thanks to Sweden Rock for having us on the bill, even though we didn’t have a new album out, or anything like that. Very nice of them. Very cool to see the supporters liking what we were doing. We had a talk within the band, and Harry was cool about it, and I had a thought like, “I don’t wanna go down memory lane.”. Everyone knows what we’ve done. No one knows what Harry and I have done these last 36 years, “Here we are with a new album.”. I wanna give the audience the opportunity to hear some of the songs on the album before it comes out, and then give them some nice pearls from the early days. I don’t wanna come out like, “Hey, here’s our back catalog.”, and do that thing. Nostalgia, that’s nothing. That has never been a Shotgun Messiah thinking. It’s never been a Harry or Zinny thinking at all. So I want to show people, “This is what we are today.”. Did it backfire? No, I don’t think so. But of course, when people hear Squeezin’ Teazin’, Nervous, Nowhere Fast, and Don’t Care ‘Bout Nothin’, the cheers will be bigger than for the new ones. But we were cocky enough to go out and start with three new songs before the first Shotgun Messiah song. But it was to promote the album, and to promote, “This is where we are now.”. If they haven’t seen Harry play for 35 some years, well, then they should see him in his prime, what he’s doing now, and then, of course, we will throw back some good memories for them as well. And that’s what we did. And I think that the audience took it very well. I think some journalists didn’t. (Laughs) But then again, you can’t win them all, and if you don’t know me or Harry, then you probably would have expected that we should do the whole safe thing and be nostalgic. And that’s not what we are about at all. We praise and love our past, but hey, we’re in the here and now. But it was great to see the supporters. The supporters are still there. And some are just as old as me. Some are younger than the first Shotgun Messiah album, which is kind of surprising. (Laughs) Maybe that album has aged with style. I don’t know. But it’s good to see the whole span of people from 20-year-olds up to people in their 60s like myself. It was a great gig. Sweden Rock Festival, I haven’t played there for many years now, and it’s always nice to come back. Very cool.
And you also celebrated the first Shotgun Messiah album as Shotgun several years ago. It must have been like 12 years ago or something. So I would say that you’ve already done that, and with one of these musicians as well.
As well, yeah. Chris Laney was there. It was the 25th anniversary of that album. And the reason was that when the real Shotgun Messiah reunion didn’t happen, it had already sparked a fire in me. When we did that album, and when we toured America, and lived in America, it was do or die for us. You know, we were competing with bands like Skid Row, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake, Ratt, Poison, and all those. It was do or die. And I thought, “What would it be like to go out there and just fucking enjoy the songs?”. So that’s what we did back then. And of course, I enjoy them even more now when I play with Harry. It’s a fantastic thing to do, absolutely. But just like you say, the nostalgia thing we already did once, because when I saw that the original Shotgun Messiah thing fell apart, then I thought like, “Well, they should be able to hear the songs.”. And so then we brought in Stixx, who was the original drummer for Shotgun Messiah, and then we found a guitar player that could be close to Harry because Rob Marcello is a fantastic guitar player. And Harry would say the same thing. Harry advised Rob Marcello to do the work that Harry did for Shotgun Messiah because he knows how hard it is to pull off some shit that he’s doing, and he said that Rob really did a good job. Kudos to Marcello, and kudos to Harry for saying that as well. But yeah, the nostalgia thing I’ve already done.
When you were on stage, what was is like for you personally to sing the four old tracks in comparison to singing the new tracks? You obviously told me about the crowd’s reaction, but inside of you, like deep in your heart?
Well, of course the new ones hit me harder, because that’s where I am at today, so to speak. The old ones, they’re good and I understand them, and, you know, that kid isn’t dead inside. I still know that kid. You know, he’s far behind somewhere. But of course the new ones are the ones that you really want to be good. The other part is that with the Shotgun Messiah stuff, I know exactly what to do because I have it in my backbone. When we opened up with Sever, like we did, that was probably the first time I was nervous in years upon the stage. I’m too stupid to be nervous. I just love to go out there and do my shit. I’m like Pluto, the dog. You know, “Get me out there. I love it.”. And people go like, “You’re never nervous?”, and I say, “Why should I be?”. But I was a little bit nervous because it meant so much to me. And I had never played it live, and then you go out, and the first gig you have is Sweden Rock Festival so it’s like, “You better not fuck up now.”. (Laughs)
And the musicians you bring with you, was it easy to get them to be in the band live as well?
It was. And that’s because they’re all friends of mine, and that we respect each other musically. I think Nalle is probably one of the best bass players there is on this planet. He’s absolutely fantastic. I absolutely love to play with Chris Laney as well. He’s a good friend, he’s a good pal, he is a professional, and he’s fun to be around. Björn: he has that groove. It was easy, and they know how to work with me. Chris Laney and I have done albums together. Björn and I did this trilogy for, like, three years. You know, like one album a year. Writing, producing, mixing, and all that. It was very intense. So he knows how it is. And Nalle was on that road with us as well because he played bass on all those three Stagman things, and he also played bass with Zan Clan for a while. So we all know each other. And Harry really liked that as well. Because he didn’t know what he walked into. You know, he hadn’t seen me for 36 years. And the Shotgun Messiah thing, that didn’t end well. We weren’t buddies when we left. We really weren’t. So, “How is it now to see each other?”. You know, we’ve been friends on the phone. And of course we wrote music together and so on, but that’s been files back and forth, and phone calls. You know, “What do you say if I do this?”, and, “Listen to this.”, or whatever. And along the way on the album, he said the same thing, that, “These guys you have picked here, Zinny, are fantastic.”. And I didn’t pick them; I presented them to him. He heard it, and he loved it. Just as much as I love Björn, and Nalle, and Chris Laney, he feels the same thing. So it really worked out well, and they were really into doing this thing with us, which is very nice.
And besides a few shows in Sweden this fall, what else can we expect from Zan/Cody in terms of live performances?
Live performances, just as you said, we have this fall thing here, October and onwards. We haven’t seen a stop to it. It’s still bookings coming in. But that’s mainly right now Sweden. It might be some Finland as well. Then, of course, we want to be on as many festivals as possible for 2027, and that’s probably gonna be set sometimes in August, September, or something like that. We are in talks in the US, which is very fun, very great to hear. And I was very surprised, to be honest, because one dropped in first, and then I thought, “Wow! How is that gonna be?”. You know, you can’t go over for one gig. And it keeps dropping in. And now we’re gonna see how we can manage to do that in a good way. We would absolutely love to. And honestly, America was our turf. We only did one gig in Sweden, ever, with Kingpin, with me as the original vocalist, so America was the place for us. Of course, we’d love to be here in Europe, and, you know, I ain’t moving to the US even if I have an American girlfriend. I kind of like it here, especially now. (Laughs)
If it wouldn’t have been for the weather, Sweden would be, I think, one of the greatest countries on earth.
I absolutely agree with you. I’ve been lucky enough to visit, I think, 46 countries in the world. I lived in Brazil, I lived in Panama, I lived in London, I lived in Los Angeles, and New York, and so on, and spent a lot of time in Italy, and I’m gonna buy a place there for winter around Lake Garda. So we’re looking at that right now. Carol is from Florida, and she said that Sweden is the most beautiful place in the summer. We will not go anywhere during the summer. But, you know, October, November… Well, now I’m gonna be in Sweden in October ‘cause I’m gonna be touring, but November, December, and all that, aah, I can be without it. I love go skiing for a week, but that’s about it. (Laughs)
About Florida, and touring, or playing live shows. There are some rock cruises that depart from Florida every year. Would that be of great interest to you to go on a cruise like that?
Yes. We are in talks with one of the cruise things right now.
I would say Monsters Of Rock, but you don’t have to name it.
But that is absolutely correct. We are in talks with them. I’ve never been on the Monsters Of Rock Cruise, but I’ve been on two Kiss cruises. It’s absolutely fantastic. I love it. I reached out. I said, “Hey, come on now.”, you know. The man in charge said, “Good, very nice. Let me see what I can do with this.”, and I said, “Yeah, I’m waiting.”. So we will see. I know that pretty much everything is set already. I know that. He seems like he’s keen to do it as well.
Could they try to force you into doing two different kinds of sets? One more like an old Shotgun Messiah. What do those people say to you regarding sets?
Regarding sets, they have said nothing so far. But we understand that as well, and we’ve seen that also at Sweden Rock, of course. And we, of course, would play Shotgun Messiah songs. Whatever they come up with, of course we will listen. If they say, “Can you do more Shotgun Messiah songs?”, I guess we could, yeah.
Now when you’ve done one album, and let’s say the Shotgun Messiah album too, then you have two albums to play from. So when you put out album number two and album number three, will you have to ditch the Shotgun Messiah songs then?
No. You know, it’s in our DNA, and it’s where it all began, so a few will still be there, I would say. Now I picked these four songs that we did this time together with Harry. Those four will probably always still be there. I know that people said, “Why didn’t you do Shout It Out?”. No, but that was a typical rap thing that was done, and Tim has a big part in that, and I don’t want to step on Tim’s toes. That was a Tim and Harry thing more than it was me. I was only in the choruses. And that’s the reason we don’t play Shout It Out. Will we do it in the future? I don’t know. But I would say even if we do three albums now with Zan/Cody, there will always be a place for Shotgun Messiah songs. It will, because that’s where it all started. So we would be pretty stupid if we don’t play Don’t Care ‘Bout Nothin’, or Nervous, or even Bop City, or whatever.
Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. Look at my old heroes, like Ronnie James Dio and Ozzy Osbourne. They always played songs from the ‘70s, from their past bands.
That’s where you started, and that’s where your audience first found you. Without the supporters, you’re nothing. You have to understand that. It doesn’t matter how fucking great songs you think you write, or whatever, and how good you think you are, or the songs are, or the band is, and so on and so forth, if people out there don’t like it, they just don’t fucking like it, and if the supporters wanna hear Don’t Care ‘Bout Nothin’ of course they should, you know. And it’s the reason why we’re here. You know, if that first album wouldn’t have been, a lot of people like you wouldn’t even have talked to me. So that’s why we’re here. So yeah, we will absolutely always play some Shotgun Messiah songs.
What besides Zan/Cody are you up to nowadays?
I’m constantly writing music. I have a whole solo album ready. I thought like, “All right. When should I put that one out?”. But I came to the conclusion that I will not do anything to disturb the Zan/Cody thing. So, if that takes four or five years, then I probably will reconsider a few songs, most likely. (Laughs) But I’m continuously writing, and some of these songs might even end up on the next Zan/Cody album, with a few twitches here and there, and Harry doing his shit. So constantly writing music. Other than that, I’m just trying to enjoy life, to be honest.
About a few twitches here and there. Just look at Bad Bad Man. What else could end up on the album? It’s like whatever song is possible.
Yes. Whatever we feel like, whatever state of mind you’re in in that moment, and what you feel about it. And again, when you’re 62 you know. I’m privileged to have a three-album deal at 62 years old. Not too many people get that, and I’m very privileged with that. And, you know, why be like, “Oh, we should do this. They expect this from us. Let’s do this formula.”? Fuck no. You know, like I said, I don’t care anymore. So it’s like show what’s inside you, what you got there, and it could be Bad Bad Man, could be She Walks With Violence, could be I Am The Shit, or whatever. Whatever comes out, comes out, and if you think that it has the nerve, and it has the thing that has the sign Zan/Cody on it, we will stamp it with a Zan/Cody stamp. Absolutely, no matter what. It could be a reggae song. I doubt it, but you should never say never. (Laughs)
By Tobbe – Published July 23rd, 2026
För en dryg månad sedan intervjuade Metal Covenant metallarna i Evergrey om deras nya album och passade då samtidigt på att prata lite kort med basisten Johan Niemann om bland annat hans medverkan på EP:n Cathedral Of Chaos från melodiska dödsmetallprojektet Burying Angels.
Den första maj släpptes EP:n Cathedral Of Chaos. Kan du berätta om den?
Mark (Palangio), som är låtskrivare och spelar kompgitarr på skivan, kontaktade mig på Facebook. Jag erbjuder mina bastjänster till folk som spelar in musik, ”Behöver ni bas, hör av er.”. Han gillar ju Evergrey och då frågade han ”Jag håller på med en EP. Jag skulle vilja göra en riktig platta av det senare. Jag skulle behöva lite bas och älskar ditt spel. Skulle du kunna tänka dig att spela? De här snubbarna kommer vara med.” – ”Självklart. Det är bara att skicka låtarna.”. Och vi var på turné då med Katatonia, men du vet, dagens teknik är så fantastisk så jag kunde ju sitta med en laptop och ett litet ljudkort. Du vet, karva ut ett par timmar här och där liksom på turnén och spela in. Så att han skickade låtarna, jag dammade in det där och skickade tillbaka. Han var jättenöjd. Och sedan hörde jag inte så mycket mer förrän han hörde av sig igen, ”Ja, nu är det klart.” och så kom det en CD och en tisha i brevlådan. Jättekul, jätteroligt.
Det är ju egentligen bara tre riktiga låtar och så ett intro på en och en halv minut. Pratade ni om varför det inte blev en lite längre EP?
Nä. Alltså, det han sa var att det var det här han hade färdigt. Sedan har han flera låtar, som jag förstår det, och han vill spela in mer och göra en riktig fullängdare. Men han är väl, som han säger själv, inte musiker egentligen, utan det här är ju ett drömprojekt liksom. Han hörde av sig till sina idoler, eller till de som han gillar liksom, och ”Jag vill att ni ska spela på min platta, för det här är min dröm.”.
När jag läser vilka som spelar sologitarr på den här plattan, så är det ändå ganska imponerande att han lyckas få ihop dessa 10 personer, för många av namnen är ju faktiskt välkända inom heavy metal.
Jamen, precis. Andy LaRocque, IA (Eklundh) från Freak Kitchen, Chris Amott, Peter Wichers. Grymt, skitkul, jätteroligt. Och så Fredman, Fredrik Nordström, han mixar skivan. Det låter ju hur bra som helst, tycker jag.
Är det viktigt för dig att göra olika sorters musik?
Ja, det är viktigt. Jag tycker det är kul. Jag gillar att göra olika saker. Det har jag alltid gjort. Jag gillar hela den kreativa processen att sätta sig in i någon annans musikaliska verkstad, så att säga, och så här ”Okej, vad vill han ha här?”. Sedan får man ju såklart vara lyhörd och ha lite stilkänsla och man får ju ha lite kommunikation, så jag menar, det vore ju kanske inte rätt att spela in slap-bas på hans låtar. Då är man ju slut liksom. Såvida han inte frågar efter det då. (Skrattar) ”Fan, kan inte du spela slap-bas?” – ”Nä, du har ringt fel snubbe då.”
När man tittar på din lista av både gästframträdanden och band eller projekt du har varit med på så är det ju en hel del faktiskt. Det är ju hårdrock i alla dess former. Har du spelat på några grejer egentligen som inte är hårdrock?
Ja, alltså, som av en händelse så spelar jag på fem låtar, hittills, det blir väl fler, det kommer väl en fullängdare där också, med Linda Varg. Hon ska släppa något nytt. Där spelar jag bas. Det är ju lite rockigare. Det är det ju. Sedan vet jag inte om jag skulle kalla det för hårdrock. Det är så här modern, rockig pop. Skitbra. Svinbra låtar. Det var också riktigt, riktigt kul att göra, och du vet, försöka hålla det så enkelt som möjligt och bara backa upp sången, för det är ju det viktigaste i sådan radioinriktad rock liksom. Men annars så har jag inte gjort så mycket. Jag har ju inte spelat in en reggae-skiva liksom. Det har jag inte gjort. Och det vet jag inte om jag ens kan. Men jag skulle ju absolut försöka om det är någon som hör av sig och vill att jag ska spela reggae. Jag gillar så pass mycket olika musik så att jag är öppen för allt, för jag tycker det är roligt.
Det är väl egentligen så, om man säljer sina tjänster, att du är en form av konsult, så egentligen så gör väl du bara vad uppdragsgivaren vill ha av dig. Varför skulle man inte kunna göra det som musiker när man kan göra det som kontorist eller vad som helst liksom?
Eller hur? Nä, jag ser absolut inga konstigheter med det liksom. Jag tycker det är jättekul. Jag är väldigt tacksam för att jag kan göra det och att folk hör av sig och vill ha mig spela bas på deras grejer och litar på mig med deras musik. Så jag är ödmjuk inför det faktumet förstås.
Så inom vilken musikstil skulle du säga att du spelar ditt bästa basspel?
Jamen, det är ju ändå någon sorts rock. Bästa? Fan, det är ju skitsvårt ju. Alltså, om jag tycker att en låt är bra, då är det ju mycket lättare för mig att spela bra, så att säga, för att låten tilltalar mig och låten säger vad jag ska göra liksom. Låten ger mig idéer. Medan om jag får en låt som inte är någonting, med bara ett ackord liksom, då är det så här ”Ja, jag vet inte. Vad ska jag göra?”. Jag kan inte göra någonting då. Men om det är det som de vill ha, ja, då ska de ju få det. Men om de säger ”Vi vill gärna att du gör någonting mer här.”, då får man ju ta på sig pannlampan och liksom gå ner i gruvan och jobba. Men det är också kul. Det är en utmaning.
När du har lagt din bas, du är klar med inspelningen och har skickat det du har gjort, sätter sig musiken i dig då, eller blir det så att du kanske släpper det eftersom det är lite mer av ett eventuellt engångsjobb?
Det händer absolut att det dyker upp någon melodi eller något riff som man tyckte var så jävla fett. Och speciellt om man då precis har spelat in det. Då sitter det gärna kvar i huvudet. Det är som efter en konsert. Man går av scenen, går in i omklädningsrummet, och sista låten som man spelade är ju den som går i huvudet liksom. Så är det ju, absolut.
Kommer det här alltid vara ett studioprojekt?
Det vet jag inte. Det får Mark bestämma. Jag menar, har jag tid och han har möjlighet och vill ha mig spela bas, javisst, självklart, jag ser inga hinder. Så att det får ju tiden utvisa då vad som händer med det liksom.
Av Tobbe – Publicerad 9:e juli 2026
All four members of Crashdïet talk with Metal Covenant about the new album Art Of Chaos.
Do you guys see some kind of new form here of Crashdïet with the new album?
Martin: Yeah, there’s a lot of new vibes. We have a few new members since the last album. We have a new singer since two years, and we have Chris Young, the new bass player, since about seven months. And we have a new album out that we’ve done together, which we’re very proud of.
And it’s been four years since the last album. In what perspective would you look at that time span between two albums?
Martin: A lot of anxiety. (Laughs) Well, that’s where pretty much all the changes have occurred since the last album. It’s been a pandemic, and we’ve had some internal issues which have led us to this. So I guess the universe has a plan.
Every band I ask when there’s a time span of four, five or six years between albums says it won’t take four years ‘til the next album. So, will it take four years ‘til the next album?
Martin: I always say that too, like, “We have so much music. Two years at most.”. And it’s always like three or four years.
Chris: We got a good pace going on right now. And we talked the other day about writing new songs. Yeah, I think it’s gonna come faster, for sure.
Martin: If we get in charge. (Laughs)
So why aren’t you guys in real charge of the situation?
Martin: Oh, it’s too complicated. (Laughs) It’s like you’re in a different place at certain times. When we wanted to make a new album, we didn’t have a label. And we didn’t want one either.
John: The plan was to release this album on our own. The original plan.
Martin: But then we kind of came in contact with an old producer and friend of mine (Patrik Frisk). He produced our second album, The Unattractive Revolution. And we started talking, and we started to write songs together. It was a great relationship, and we ended up signing on his own label (Ninetone). So now we are signed again. I mean, ah, we can’t talk too much about it. I mean, we have an album out, and it’s pretty fresh right now. But we have a lot of ideas, and we know a lot about the industry, so. We’re not an easy band to work with. But it’s a two-way street, you know. But yeah, we’re really happy that the album is out.
When I listen to the new album, I don’t hear it as much as a sleaze band or a glam band as I did when the first albums came out. Listen to a song like Chaos Magnetic. It’s more heavy metal than sleaze to me.
Martin: Some songs, yeah. But I think we have actually re-entered the sleaze on a lot of other songs. Like Satizfaction and Sick Enough For Me. Those are, like, really sleazy songs. A song like Chaos Magnetic… I mean, it’s all about which song is the best in the end. For our whole career, we’ve written too many songs, and it’s always about the best song. The best 10 songs. Sometimes it’s a heavy metal song, sometimes it’s a ballad, sometimes it’s a punk song. We have Quitter, which is almost a Ramones song. But it’s catchy and it lifts you up, and that’s why it makes the album, you know. So we don’t really plan on what direction we wanna go until we have all these songs. And, obviously, John has more of a raspy approach, like a rougher voice than the previous singer, so that also affects the songwriting. We can do more punky, and sleazy stuff, and heavy metal stuff, and it just fits the concept.
John: I think the cool thing about Crashdïet, looking from outside, is that there isn’t like a standard formula. Even looking back at Generation Wild, where it’s a big difference between Chemical and the song Generation Wild, and so forth. I think it’s cool to paint with a different brush songwriting-wise.
Chris: This is what makes this band really unique. There are so many different influences from glam, and heavy metal, and punk, and we’re not afraid to show that in the songs.
John: I think the sleaze label comes more from the aesthetic of the band.
Michael: The aesthetic and the attitude.
Martin: And all the fuck-ups.
What’s the hardest part with trying to develop the band into new stuff, but still remain as Crashdïet?
Martin: We don’t really think of it that way. We just, “It’s time to make new music.”, and we do it. We’re not thinking that we have to develop, or de-develop. (Laughs)
Michael: This time it was more production-wise. We wanted it rougher, more laid back, like, “We only need one guitar, we need a bass, we need some drums. We don’t wanna quantize everything.”.
Martin: We didn’t wanna cheat. On the last album we had, like, 18 guitars, and it’s hard to deliver that on stage.
Michael: I think that was the main part we discussed. Still heavy, but without cheating.
Martin: We wanted to make it still badass. In the ‘80s you didn’t have 18 guitar overdubs, you know.
John: Except for Def Leppard.
Martin: But they are Def Leppard. And they had two guitarists.
Tell me about the artwork of the album.
Martin: It was Michael’s idea, actually.
Michael: I don’t know how I thought of that.
John: We kind of used AI in the band, just to come up with ideas. There’s like an in-house department on our record label, and they have a graphic designer there, and he got our sketches. AI sketches, I guess. And he turned it into a real illustration. It’s not an AI picture. It was illustrated by him. Yeah, we wanted something that looked chaotic.
Martin: I think we had the concept pretty early in the process, ‘cause we had the song Chaos Magnetic.
John: And it was supposed to be the first single.
Martin: Yeah, Satizfaction wasn’t even written. And we were testing all these cover things, and Michael came up with this blindfolded statue of justice.
John: I think the statue image was pretty early. We had many different versions of that. One time we actually had an idea of us being statues with blindfolds on. But it was too much work.
Martin: It’s kind of resembling our past history of the band, which has been pretty chaotic, and it still is to this day. Not maybe that we’re crazy individuals. But stuff happens, you know.
Michael: Like chaos surrounds us, even though we don’t want that.
Martin: Even though we’re kind of calm these days, it’s like everything is a mess.
Chris: Sometimes I’m rehearsing the song that we’re gonna play, and because I have it on repeat, and playing it five times in a row, I pay more attention to the lyrics, and I start to feel a little bit more how it is related to the entire history of the band. So this entire album, if you start paying close attention to the lyrics, it is showing, like, all the stages from this band from the beginning. And I think the artwork is the best representation of that. Like it shows everything that we were talking about in the lyrics. Also, because of the colors and all, it’s also a throwback to the first album in a way. And it’s a beautiful artwork. I love it.
Martin: I think the artwork is the best we’ve had. It’s so beautiful. It’s good on vinyl. The thing is that we’ve had a lot of chaos, and we’re kind of like, “Why complain? Let’s just embrace it.”. So that’s the idea of this album. Just embrace the chaos. Let’s go forward and take the chaos with us and make something great.
John: Maybe the album should have been called Embrace The Chaos. I didn’t realize this.
Chris: Can we do like a reprint or something?
Martin: Well, that could be the follow up.
Now with a lot of albums out, is it any different to release an album today than it was 20 years ago?
Martin: It’s a whole different ballgame. I don’t know where to begin. When we released our first album, it was still a lot about selling CDs. Because there was no Spotify. And there was a lot of piracy. The vinyl wasn’t popular then, so we never printed the first album on vinyl. It was all about CDs. Now we sell more vinyl than CDs. The record company is all about, “You got to do content, you got to do TikTok.”. There is no, like, timeline. It’s like, “Just spread it out. Just release the single there, the video there.”, and we’re like, “What?”. (Laughs)
John: All of us have been releasing records for the past 15 years or whatever. I’d say it was different even 10 years ago. It was a whole different ballgame. Yeah, it’s tougher. But I guess it’s easier to get recognized if you’re a new band. It’s probably easier to get attention nowadays, if you’re good at it.
Martin: Yeah, you have to be good at content, social media. But we’re like these old farts.
Chris: Nowadays you have more means to get to your audience. Like you can share. I remember the first demo I recorded with my band. I printed, like, 50 CDs myself and just went to a rock shop in my hometown. I was just delivering them to people. I spent the whole day just giving the CDs away and telling people about the music. Nowadays you can reach 50 people immediately. It’s really fast. It doesn’t mean that they’re gonna stick with the band, or that they’re gonna follow the band. But I mean, back then, like none of those 50 people did even care about the CD I gave to them, you know. So nowadays you have more platforms to get to your audience in a way. But at the same time you have to be active all the time, otherwise you’re just gonna be behind, you know. So it’s a challenge at the same time. Like you have more technology, you have more tools to promote your music, but at the same time you have to be doing that, like, all the time.
Martin: It’s just so much more work for the artist. Like, “We’ve finished the album, we’ve done the video, now we have to start making content.”.
Chris: It feels like just a small thing that you do could just boom from one day to another. And then some other thing that you put a lot of effort into, no one is gonna care about. So it’s kind of random in a way. But I mean, times are changing, like, every time. You know, every year is different, and you just have to keep it up. But if you’re real and true to the music, and if you really enjoy what you’re doing, you’re just gonna dive into it and you’re just gonna promote your music. It’s not like I’m doing this only for the fame, and only for the likes, or whatever. Like I really enjoy this, so I’m gonna use whatever tools are available right now. And this is gonna keep changing, like, faster and faster. But the important thing is the passion. That has always been there, from the first album with a major record deal, and now when we’re doing some TikTok videos… (Laughs) What a change, right?
What’s it like to sing in this band, which had so many previous singers?
John: I think with every new singer in Crashdïet, it’s not like you’re taking over the torch, so to speak. It’s more like a reboot, a new era begins, and Crashdïet becomes something new. It has been like that with every singer. You know, we’re creating new history right now. I mean, of course I feel gratitude and respect for the old guys, but this is something else. This has very little to do with the previous guys, I’d say.
Will you now shake up the setlist a little bit and play more songs from the new album, or will you keep kind of the standard set that you used to have?
John: We are seven albums deep. We play goodies from every album. I mean, we have, like, standard songs that we play on every show. But I think we’ve been pretty good in the last couple of years picking maybe a little odd songs that haven’t been played for years.
Chris: I remember after Monsters Of Rock (Cruise) some people were like, “I can’t believe you guys played Bound To Fall.”.
Michael: But with a lot of songs that we have done that way, we’re asking ourselves after the show, “Is this more for us, or is this for the audience?”.
Martin: Exactly. They don’t always work.
Michael: We’ve done that a couple of times, and some of the songs are still in the set, and some of the songs are not. But it’s fun for us to have two or three songs that’s new.
Chris: We have a lot to play with. We have the main songs that are gonna be on the setlist forever. But we can always change from one show to another. There’s some really good albums, so we can always choose and make some changes.
John: We’re at a point right now where it becomes pretty hard. We have to sacrifice some songs, because other songs are more like, “We need to play this one, so we have to sacrifice that one.”.
By Tobbe – Published July 2nd, 2026
