Hails Fredrik, how are you doing?
-Hey Vincent, I'm fine thank you. Got a bit of a cold-it's turning to winter here you know...

Could you tell us what has happened between the disbanding of A CANAROUS QUINTET and the release of the first CURRICULUM MORTIS demo, "Into Death"?
-ouphhh... Well, actually just a couple of weeks after we had decided to call it quits with A CANAROUS QUINTET I was asked to join AMON AMARTH. I kept going on for a while with GUIDANCE OF SIN which was the continuation for Linus and Jesper after A CANAROUS QUINTET, but I quit after a while to concentrate fully on AMON AMARTH. This was in 1998 and since then I have pretty much been busy with AMON AMARTH... Still, Leo and me often talked about getting together and jam a bit, and so we finally did some years ago now. I actually had no ideas at all before we met up, but Leo had plenty and we started to jam. This woke up my inspiration and I started to write a whole lot of new material and the idea of CURRICULUM MORTIS slowly took shape.

How have people responded to the demo so far? Having been part of quite a bit of releases, how do you value the opinions of magazines?
-It's been mostly good reactions, but I have also read some bad reviews. I don't take it too serious, but of course I read with big interest what other people think about it! In general I have noticed that Europeans seem to like it more than American magazines, and those who don't like it have a problem with us having written NILE and VADER as our influences. However, that critic I only take as something positive since I have no interest in sounding like any of those bands. And just because you have influences doesn't mean you have to sound like them! If not, those people want all bands to sound the same..?

On your website it says that you played practically all guitars and drums, while Mattias Leinikka did the vocals and Linus Nibrant did some additional guitars, but I don't see mention of Leo Pignon, who is credited as a band member. Could you shed light on the current line-up and tell a bit about how the recording went?
-Yes the line-up is me and Leo, and I will continue having Leini singing as long as he wants to.  How the recording ended up is just because we had a really hard time finding dates that fitted to everybody. Leo has a family and a kid and can't take time off at any time, Linus was very busy and the studio wasn't available any other dates than the ones we used. So it was necessary to even be able to record the songs that I had to play also the guitars on there.

Most of the songs on the demo have an AMON AMARTH twist to them. Do you contribute riffs/ songs to AMON AMARTH, or were you maybe influenced by the music of your main band for the material of CURRICULUM MORTIS? Were there maybe riffs intended for AMON AMARTH that are now used on  "Into Death"?
-I do have ideas and contribute riffs to AMON AMARTH, even if Olli is the main writer. I don't know if I'm influenced but that wouldn't be unthinkable. However, me and Olli have totally different styles when it comes to creating music. Actually, the song "Walls of Ice" was originally planned as an AMON AMARTH song and we did start to rehearse it a couple of times, but there was no time to get it finished before the recording of "Vs the world" so I decided to record it as a CURRICULUM MORTIS-song instead.


In addition there is a song originally written for A CANAROUS QUINTET ("Frail") which was never released. Would you also consider CURRICULUM MORTIS to be the continuation of A CANAROUS QUINTET?
-No, definitely not. Still, it's obvious that there are some resemblances since I guess at least I write music pretty much the same as I did then but it was never meant to be some kind of continuation of A CANAROUS QUINTET.

The production of the demo is really good, and I feel there is some kind of dark and cold vibe to it. Would you agree, and was this an intended effect?
-Oh that's great to hear! We did as good as we could with the small resources we had, mind you it's only a hobby-studio and everything is recorded on a digital hard drive recorder. I hope that the dark and cold feeling you get comes more from the riffs and music more than the production-at least then I feel I have succeeded! But it's possible that the kind of "primitive" and raw sound also gives a tribute to that atmosphere.

The promo copy came without lyrics. What are the lyrics about?
-I can only speak for the lyrics I wrote. "Kill all life" is a pure discharge of anger and hate. I got the idea from the movie the fifth element where they so damn nicely talk about saving all life. I thought that was cheesy and in the state of mind I was in I just wanted to kill everything instead. The other one is "Walls of ice" which is a bit more personal to me and actually written with a certain person in mind. If I know Leini well enough, I know his lyrics are mostly about anti-Christianity, not satanic though.

From the last few AMON AMARTH albums it was already clear that your drumming skills are amazing, but the guitar work on the demo, all from your hand, is also very good.  How long have you been playing, and is it more for fun or would you maybe like to play more guitar in the future?
-Thank you for the compliment! Actually, I have been playing guitar longer than I have been playing drums (since 1988), even if I started to concentrate on the drums when A CANAROUS QUINTET started to record CD's around 1994. Since then I only picked up the guitar to write new riffs and not really to practice my skills. I have no intention of becoming a guitarist again (In my first band ever I played guitar) and recording the songs on the demo was really difficult since I wasn't used to playing that much guitars, and even less to play tight and well! So I think I keep it to drums also in the future, I never stop writing music though.

Is it hard to combine the work for CURRICULUM MORTIS with the intense activities of AMON AMARTH. I mean, you guys finally seem to be getting the deserved recognition, resulting in a lot of touring.
-Not really. AMON AMARTH will always come first and CURRICULUM MORTIS is just a project that I pick up when I have time for it.

Can we consider CURRICULUM MORTIS to be more of a side-project? Are the other members involved in other bands at the moment.
-Do you mean the members of CURRICULUM MORTIS? As I said Leo is quite busy already with his "normal" life, Leini has some other kind of band but I don't know how they are doing or even what they sound like. CURRICULUM MORTIS is a project, but if I will have more time off in the future I wouldn't have anything against having it as a real band. Still, AMON AMARTH is my number one priority.

How do the coming months look for you?
-We (AMON AMARTH) have just finished playing all festivals for this summer so we're in the process of starting to write some new material for the next album which will be recorded in may-june next year. In October we're heading out for our third US-tour this year, supporting VADER, KREATOR and NILE and in December we're touring Europe as a part of the X-mass festival tour.

What has been the highlight of your career as a musician so far? And what do you dislike most about it? Any dream you'd like to fulfil?
-That's really hard to say... I would say that Wacken last year with AMON AMARTH was one of the highlights, playing for well over 10000 people. And it's also been very fulfilling for me to finally release something totally of my own in the demo "Into Death", and I have to confess I'm very proud of it! What I dislike most is probably that doing what I love most turns into a business and can sometimes feel like a job.

I'm afraid I'll have to ask you an AMON AMARTH question: You recently played a show in Israel and I heard a lot of good things about that show. Could you tell us a bit about it?
-Hehe, I read the questions before so I knew this would come therefor I didn't want to mention Israel in the last question. But it was in fact on of the greatest shows we ever did! We had an awesome time during the four days we stayed there, hanging mostly on the beach during the days and of course in bars during night : ) I understand it's a bit controversial to do a show in Israel, but we were really excited to go there, of course not of it's history or religion, but to have the opportunity to see a new and different country! And all people we met were super cool and friendly.

Thanks a lot for your time, we'll see you around with AMON AMARTH in December at the X-Mass fests! If you would like to add something to the interview, here is the moment to do so!
-Thank you for the interview, hope you find the answers interesting! Please check out the homepage http://www.curriculummortis.com/ and have a listen to the samples there, and of course don't forget to leave a message in the guestbook!
Cheers!

Want more info on Curriculum Mortis?
Visit Curriculum Mortis's band information page!

Other articles for Curriculum Mortis:

Demo review

Into Death»

by Vincent 19 Aug, 2003