Interview with ISOLE

A decade, that is a long time. But that is how long I last heard of these guys, back then they were called Forlorn and were one of the most promising DOOM combos around with their infamous Waves Of Sorrow Demo. Now as ISOLE they have returned with a debut Forevermore, a great first album of Epic Doom Metal. Here is a interview with founding guitarist Crister Olsson.

First of all thanks for a excellent debut release, how has the reactions been so far to Forevermore ?

Thanks a lot Gabriel. The reactions has been overwhelming so far, the reviews from online mags has been so great I couldn’t belive it at first. But in the end it’s the buyers that decides if this album is great.

You recently played some Swedish dates with The Gates Of Slumber, Reverend

Bizarre, Thee Plague Of Gentlemen, how was the turnouts ?

Yeah, there were two gigs, one in Stockholm at Club 666 and one in Gothenborg at Henriksberg. The Stockholm gig was awesome, it could have been more people but doom doesn’t sell in Sweden apparently, though there were people from other countries there and that’s awesome. And people actually bought lots of merchandise. And meeting the other bands were great, they are cool guys everyone of them, hope to see them all again. Which we did at DSR.Gothenborg on the other hand wasn’t too good, I think there were 40 people who found their way to Henriksberg, and after two bands we had to move the concert due to complaining neighbours, and I thought Gothenborg were the metal capital of Sweden.

You also did recently a gig at the latest DOOM SHALL RISE fest, how was the turnout for that one ?

DSR was fucking unbelievable, it was the first time we played outside Sweden and we didn’t expect that awesome feedback from the audience in Göppingen. We even got to do an extra song there and that’s not that common I’ve heard. We sold every copy of “forevermore” after the gig and we couldn’t believe our ears when people came up to us and praised our gig. We must find our way back to Germany !!!!

Forevermore is the first album for ISOLE but you sure have a history to tell, fill us in on the origins of the band ?

Well, what can I say. Daniel (Bryntse-ed) and Crister (myself), two old friends that listened too much at Candlemass and Bathory back in 1990 decided to form a doom band…. Playing slow couldn’t be that hard we thought, we were beginners back then. We started up with playing some Candlemass tunes and soon we crafted our own doom hymn and Forlorn was born. The years went on and on and the line-up changed many times. And lots of recordings were made in the early 1990, the only one worth mentioning is the “waves of sorrow” demo-tape. But here we are at last after 15 years and a new name “Isole”.

Talk about the production on Forevermore, how pleased are you with the turnout and the final mix of the album, fill us in on the studiotime you had ?

Unfortunately we didn’t have the time in studio that we really wanted, we recorded “forevermore” in a week and then we mixed it in two days, next time we must have a larger budget so we can do what we want in the studio. Due to this short time I think “forevermore” lost a little bit in the production, we wanted a little bit more powerful sound, but hell yeah… it’s clear and we are quite satisfied when you consider that we recorded under such time schedule.

I have personally followed the origins of this combo for a very long time,there is a couple of democlassics here that doesn’t sound dated at all even though some are from more than a decade back, how do you feel about the material on Forevermore ?

That’s correct Gabriel, some songs are very old. These songs grew in the rehearsal room for many years though, and they are a little bit edited. We would never release a song which we are not satisfied with. And we think we have a lot of old songs that deserves to be released so propably there will be some other old forlorn songs released in the future.

The title Forevermore, what is the mainmessage in that title ?

Epic doom is timeless. It’ll never fade. And the fact that we had a song that have the same name doesn’t make things worse.

Compare ISOLE from studio to a live environment, what is the main difference ?

In the studio when we recorded we were only 3 members in the band. So Daniel played the drums and I did all the guitars. Daniel did also all vocals except the screams on Moonstone. Henka did an excellent job at growling so…Live on the otherhand, I think we are more powerful live and now when we have a new drummer in Jonas, Daniel could concentrate more on the vocals when he has a guitar in his hands, it doesn’t look that good when the lead singer is sitting behind the drums in my opinion. And due to the fact that we have lots of choirs I had to do some singing live as well. It turned out pretty good I think.

More on the album, there is a good mix on the disc, acoustics, emotional

structures, great instrumentation, choirs. Speaking of the mix on the album and the production process that you had, did you had all the plans before you went into the studio or did it come while you were in there ?

That’s our thing. Using some dynamics and put a lot of work in the songwriting so the songs gets varied. Most of the material were written in advance, but some things came to us in the studio. You always come up with ideas in the studio, some crazy ideas and some great ideas. But you must try out things or you will regret it later on.

Talking about the lyrical subjects here, what is the lyrical themes on Forevermore ?

We write songs about joy and shopping because it fits to the music, hahaha…No… we do not have an actually lyrical theme on the forevermore, we write mostly about love (lost love in particular) and life/death. Heavy stuff…

The lineup that you have now is changed compare to what you have on the album, talk about the new skinbasher, what is his past efforts and how much input does he have for the progression of your soundpicture ?

Jonas is a great drummer and he has started to find his place in Isole. Now when we are starting to rehearse new material we will see what he really will do for the sound picture. So far we have only rehearsed the material from the album and he mainly plays the drums the way Daniel recorded them, with a few exceptions. Jonas is also the drummer of death metal band “Withered Beauty” where he plays really fast. All I can say is that I am really satisfied having Jonas behind the drums in Isole.

More on the soundpicture, how would you describe the concept that this band have ?

As I mentioned earlier we focus a lot on songwriting and dynamics but also emotions it’s important to get your feelings in the music. We want to sound like Isole. All of us listens to lots of different music and we pull the compositions in different directions and I think that’s a good thing. Tragic tunes are good tunes in my ears. We want the music to sound sad, beautiful and heavy as hell.

The albumcover is a bit mysterious, how pleased are you with the coverconcept of this album and do you feel the cover goes hand in hand with the cover of Forevermore ?

We actually made the cover ourselves. I’m quite satisfied with the result, it’s beautiful coulors and it’s dark. The symbol were intended to symbolize the content of forevermore, but I don’t know if it really worked. It’s one large branch or what ever which splits up and then reunites in the end… forevermore or what ever…Mostly we focused on the colours and we wanted the inside of the booklet to be simple.

The name ISOLE, where does that come from ?

The name Isole comes from our previous name Forlorn. It’s the same word in an other language, you go figure out which language yourself. It’s a simple yet beautiful name.

You are signed with I HATE RECORDS, how did you hook up with them and how

pleased are you with the push from the label so far ?

We are satisfied with Ola and I Hate Records. We know he will do what he can for the band as he is a fan of Isole since many years. Ola was the one who contacted us and said that the world needs an Isole album, I really hope he is right.

How is the next ISOLE album going to sound like compare to Forevermore, have you any ideas ?

We can only speculate ourselves how the next Isole album will sound like. The fact that we often let the songs develope in the rehearsal room under some time a song can switch shape a little bit in time. But I think the next album will be a little bit slower and a little bit heavier but that’s just speculations. We have lots of old material that deserves to find its way to an album and we have a bunch of freshly penned compositions which we will try out.

Beside a new ISOLE album, whatelse is in the plans right now, any EPS, comps, gigs fill us in on the up and coming plans.

We have some gigs here in Sweden, and then we will take a break during the summer due to family matters. But we will rehearse new material during the summer. We are planning to record a second album at the end of this year if everything turns out like we want it to. And we are also very eager to go on tour this fall, we have been discussing this with our label and we will see how it will turn out. We want to get back in Europe. For now we just wanna see how our debut album will do.

Thanks for the interview, best wishes with the Forevermore and ISOLE.

Thank you Gabriel and I’m sure we will meet again in the next ten years.. hahha.

/crister

Review Of Forevermore

ISOLE WEB