INTERVIEW WITH PETER TÄGTGREN BY JILLIAN DRACHMAN
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HEILE PHOTOGRAPHY
Pain has unveiled the unquestionably brilliant I Am, the project’s follow-up to 2016’s Coming Home. Founded in 1996 by Sweden’s Peter Tägtgren, Pain has always defied genres, ingeniously mixing electronics, metal, and much more. With decades of achievements in his arsenal, Tägtgren has established himself as one of the most highly esteemed figures in extreme music, and I Am will delight both new and returning fans.
Tägtgren informs us that he slowly began composing I Am with the infectious 2021 hit single “Party in My Head,” which became the album’s fifth track. He likewise wrote “Push the Pusher” at an early stage. Tägtgren recollects, “In between tours and stuff, I kept on writing here and there. I was not in a hurry. It’s been eight years, but I’ve been busy as hell.” Granted, Tägtgren wisely selected the 2011 single “My Angel” to serve as I Am’s penultimate number. This song boasts additional vocals and lyrics by France’s Cécile Siméone. Because “My Angel” never received the attention that it deserved, Tägtgren states, “I felt like it was time to bring it back and give it a good release, so to speak.”
“I WAS NOT IN A HURRY. IT’S BEEN EIGHT YEARS, BUT I’VE BEEN BUSY AS HELL.”
Jonas Kjellgren, who mastered I Am, similarly co-wrote the lyrics to the album’s finale, “Fair Game,” with Tägtgren, who explains, “He has his studio, Black Lounge, in the same building as I have my studio, and he’s been renting it for 10-12 years, maybe even more. We had a blues band together, Roadhouse Diet, that I played drums in. We tried to do things together here and there. I was done with everything, except the lyrics for the slow song. We started bouncing ideas around, and eventually we got it together.”
Tägtgren’s son Sebastian appears on drums throughout I Am. Sebastian actually composed and performed all the instruments for two of the 11 tracks, “Don’t Wake the Dead” and “Revolution.” Tägtgren comments on his son’s abilities, “He’s super talented. He started writing music with me on End of Disclosure [2013]. He was only 14 years old, so he’s really good.” Like his father, Sebastian has revealed himself to be an innovator by nature. Thus, Tägtgren remarks of his son’s solo project, “It’s amazing. I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like Korn versus Tool versus Depeche Mode.”
I Am’s third opus, “Go with the Flow,” has already proven another irresistible single. Tägtgren notes, “If you listen to the intro without vocals, it’s very 80s and it’s a challenge. ‘What the hell should I do with my vocals on top of that?’ Usually, things like that can take a while. When you start going out into unknown territories, you’re not so sure about it. I tried different styles of singing on the verses. In the end, it felt better with the low vocals, and so, that’s what I kept and hopefully other people like it.”
The music video for “Go with the Flow” features actor and musician Peter Stormare alongside Tägtgren. “He’s a great guy. We always have a lot of fun together, and we’ve been good friends for, I don’t know, 10-15 years. We have the same interests. We’re both huge Beatles fans, so we sit and do our nerdy stuff when we meet up and talk. He’s great to have around. Of course, everyone knows his talent when it comes to being a movie star. He’s unbelievable. I really like how he acts in front of the camera. He helps me out and gives me some pointers.”
“WITH PAIN, THERE’S DIFFERENT KINDS OF MUSIC STYLES. SOMETIMES IT’S 80S STYLE, SOMETIMES IT’S 90S RAVE GOA, AND SOMETIMES IT’S MORE HEAVY METAL.”
A beautifully varied album, I Am stands as a magnificent testament to Tägtgren’s versatility. “If I write a fast song, then usually the next one will be a slow song. It’s always like a roller coaster for me when I write, even with Hypocrisy. There’s gotta be slow songs. There’s gotta be mid-tempo and fast songs, but with Pain, there’s different kinds of music styles. Sometimes it’s 80s style, sometimes it’s 90s rave Goa, and sometimes it’s more heavy metal. I just try different things.”
Tägtgren recalls that his focus was narrower before Pain. “My aim was to do metal when I started playing.” Pain became the vessel that enabled him to experiment with blending elements. “In the beginning, I wanted to do old 90s Goa trance. I didn’t know how to do it with the keyboards, so I had to put guitars on top of it, and then, it became this Pain stuff. So, it’s been a development. I come from using distorted guitars, and now I’m trying to be some kind of synth producer. It’s learning by doing.”
“I’M TRYING TO WRITE CATCHY SHIT AND ALSO HAVE GOOD RHYTHM IN IT. IT’S VERY IMPORTANT TO ME SINCE I COME FROM BEING A DRUMMER.”
Regarding inspirations, Tägtgren tells us, “I don’t have too many influences nowadays, in the last 10-15 years. The older you get, the more you go back to your roots. When I was growing up, my dad was doing synthesizers in the 70s. He was making them. So, I was brought up with a lot of synth music like Jean-Michel Jarre.” Tägtgren shares, “Pain is just my taste and my ideas of how things should be.”
He continues, “I’m trying to write catchy shit and also have good rhythm in it. It’s very important to me since I come from being a drummer. All this attitude in Pain is really about having a good groove, no matter if the song is slow or fast.” According to Tägtgren, a Pain track should also “have some kind of point in it, like some good hooks and good choruses. It’s trying to do what I would like to hear—something that moves me.”
When discussing Pain, Tägtgren names mixing as the most difficult part of the production process. “Sometimes, you don’t follow what you’re supposed to. If you have an idea in your head, you start working on that, but after a while, you lose your path. You start doing other things, and it takes a lot longer. So, you have to stick with what you have in mind from the beginning.” Tägtgren admits that producing his own material poses a challenge, “It’s so much easier to push and produce other people than to do it for yourself.”
The masterfully executed production of I Am reflects Tägtgren’s supremacy in the field and also owes to Sebastian’s assistance. The proprietor of Abyss Studio, Tägtgren is known as an insanely accomplished producer and engineer. A “huge black metal fan from the 80s,” Tagtgren’s list of clients from the darkest genre of them all contains superstars and dangerous wonders—Immortal, Abruptum, Gorgoroth, Kampfar, Rotting Christ, Ophthalamia, Sorhin, Arckanum, Marduk, Setherial, Vondur, Dark Funeral, Dimmu Borgir, Enslaved, and so forth. He has, of course, collaborated with a range of renowned acts outside of black metal as well—Candlemass, Amorphis, Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, etc.
“PAIN IS PAIN. AS SOON AS I START SINGING OR PUT MY GUITARS ON, IT SOUNDS LIKE PAIN NO MATTER WHAT I DO.”
Pain has a string of live gigs, including slots at Wacken Open Air, Graspop Metal Meeting, Summer Breeze Open Air, and Rockharz. Tägtgren informs us of exciting plans, “Right now, we’re looking at cool things to develop the States show. We’re a very well-oiled band. We did this European tour in October/November of last year, and the crowd was great. We had a very good turnout. The other three bands were fucking great as well. It was a great package, and now we aim to go over to America. We’re working a lot on that.” Tägtgren has already experienced life on the road with Sebastian. “We have toured together with Pain since 2016, and we did Lindemann tours together. We’ve been around the world a couple of times together. It’s really great.”
As we eagerly await Pain on US soil, Tägtgren will continue creating fresh material for both Pain and Hypocrisy, the celebrated death metal outfit he conceived in 1991. Since Tägtgren only has those two bands at present, he assures fans that the time intervals between his albums should decrease. Pain’s next record is bound to offer fun surprises. “It’s important that it feels like, ‘Okay! I took another step forward, I’m happy with what I did, and there’s some new elements in there.’ But Pain is Pain. As soon as I start singing or put my guitars on, it sounds like Pain no matter what I do.” Tägtgren confirms that he also doesn’t foresee Hypocrisy undergoing any major changes, “Hypocrisy has already established a songwriting style.” A tireless king of his craft, Tägtgren is sure to amaze with his future work under the Pain and Hypocrisy banners, as he always has with astounding success.
