Oscar Carlquist
RAM
I have been doing fine, some hectic days so close to the release with music video production and interviews and this time around even tour planning and promotion. So a lot to do, but it's all necessary.
It's a kind of personal title for me its about some of my spiritual practices. It dates back to the "Lightbringer" album and since it is "Lightbringer"'s 10th anniversary I went back to the lyric of the song "Titan" and took the title from there to make a mark for myself regarding my spiritual development for the last 10 years.
The title "The Throne Within" really doesn't have anything to do with that but you bring up a fun point about what the video could be about. The general idea that we wanted to get across with it was mainly just that we don't play by the rules, we are music biz renegades, outlaws out of control, too metal for the system.
It's a smoker, a fast song that is truly Heavy Metal to the core and with a great catchy chorus. Its also a short song, most of the songs on the album are quite long and long songs are always more of a pain to make videos for, those extra minutes are times 10 in hours to film. I think the song is a perfect single, it's a straight to the point, RAM as fuck, Heavy Metal song.
I would say that we have pushed the envelope just a little bit but we are still very consistent, it is a RAM record no doubt about it, but it is very diverse as all our records to date have been. We try to think like we are making a movie when we assemble the songs for an album and we always limit ourselves to the vinyl format, so a movie in 2 acts. And for a movie to be interesting the different parts have to differ from each other quite dramatically. Since we have again followed the same formula RAM fans won't be especially surprised, first time listeners might be though.
We get better and better at everything we do, its natural because we get more experience and I can hear that clearly on this album, I think we surpassed a stepping stone in many aspects of our art with this record but its all in the details. We still go to the same place as we did before writing songs for our very first release the "Sudden Impact" E.P, we still have the same influences and still view our musicality in very much the same way as we did back then. We will continue to go back there until all the things we talked about that we wanted to do in the beginning have been done, then we might change something but I would say that we can write at least 6 more albums using the same formula.
We wrote this album in the same way as we written most of our albums, the only album that differs a bit in that manner is the ROD album that we wrote in 1.5 months. This record was written over the span of one year. What we do is that we start with a riff or a melody and we feel it, see what emotions it brings, if it does not bring an emotion we discard it. After "feeling it in" I give it a title suitable with the emotion it invoked so that the rest of the song will follow that path. Then we work on music and lyrics simultaneously.
My favorite song of the album is the song "Ravnfell", I think it's the best song we ever wrote. It is a very epic and quite heavy song with a great riff as its backbone. Not more for me to say really I love that song to death.
This is an interesting topic. The "second wave" of the Heavy Metal sound, established by bands like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne one can see as the crystallization of the Heavy Metal sound, as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Uriah Heep through a musical alchemy, blending blues with sacral and neo classical elements gave birth to it. This crystallization sound, the first evolution of Heavy Metal became the foundation for all other versions of the sound to follow and it is the basis for the Heavy Metal scene today.
RAM are traditionalists, we hail to that school. Now this last year I have heard a lot of people express their fears of the end of the grand days of Heavy Metal due to the fact that so many artists are doing their farewell tours and reaching the end of their careers. This fear is justified because this crystallized sound is vital for the stability of the rest of the scene, it is the reflection point in the middle so to speak. And the scene and strong business forces within the scene should be looking for the heirs to that sound, wardens of the true metal spirit so to speak in order to save Metal as we know it instead of just saying "well it was fun as long as it lasted", because the styles that have come after the "crystallized" sound are just not strong enough or centered enough to hold the rest of the scene on its back.
Heavy Metal is release, it is catharsis. It takes you through fire, blood, death and hell but with vitality and undying force. The true adept of Heavy Metal will take this inner journey, this trial and come out stronger and more experienced on the other side, this will create a feeling of fulfillment that in turn will create the feelings you mentioned.
We never played with any of them before but I think that Vulture is definitely one of the best new bands to emerge for a very long time, so I was really happy to first become label mates with them and now go on tour. This tour will be chaos; I think that the aggression will hit the ceiling at these shows.
A mini tour of Spain and Portugal is in the tubes but nothing is confirmed yet.
Thanks for the interview! BANG YOUR HEAD OR LOSE IT!
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