Interview

Interview With Peter Tagtgren From Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is one of the bands that have written their own chapter in the metal archives. From the very beginning 15 years ago, this band released a number of amazing albums and their music never became stagnant.

Last Friday, Nov 17th, I sat down with legendary mainman Peter Tagtgren after their performance in Worcester, MA. Here's the transcript of our conversation:

Gothique: How's the tour going so far? This is your second US tour this year

Peter: Well, it's been intensive for sure. In a year we've done two European tours, two American tours and also went to Russia and Greece so it's just been playing and playing.

Gothique: Your latest album Virus came out last year and it's a strong following to your best albums. How do you manage to stay so creative and original over the years?

Peter: I don't know, I guess I've seen a lot of bands stay in the same place, doing the same album all over again and for me that's not really interesting. And those are bands that I really like... So I try to make it more interesting... for myself. Because if I don't think it's interesting, then who else is gonna think it's interesting? You gotta write what you want to hear, that's what I'm trying to do.

Gothique: Are you working on any new material?

Peter: Only with my other band, Pain. As far as Hypocrisy, we're gonna try to get a headlining American tour. I mean, only in the major cities, like three and a half, four weeks tops.

Gothique: So this is already in the works?

Peter: Yeah, they're trying to work on it now but I don't wanna promise because I promised before and it didn't happen. But that's the plan.

Gothique: I'm curious, as a producer, how do you choose which bands to work with?

Peter: Well, anything that feels interesting. Someone calls up and if the music sounds interesting, I do it. Before I did it just to learn, get more experience and build up my studio. And now, I don't want to do it for money anymore, I wanna do it just because it's fun.

Gothique: And do you feel that having you as a producer helps sell the album a lot better?

Peter: It used to be like that in the past. That was one of the reasons why I closed down [ The Abyss Studio]. I don't know if it sold more or not but they always used my name as a selling point.

Gothique: You got tired of it?

Peter: Yeah, I didn't really care for that

Gothique: Many years ago I read in a magazine how you described working with different bands in The Abyss studio and it was pretty much " great guys, we got really drunk together". How do you remember this period- was it more fun or more hard work?

Peter: [laughs] Yeah, I mean, we didn't get drunk every night. On the weekends, around 8 o'clock at night on Friday, we would start drinking and kept on recording. Usually on Saturday around noon when we came back [ to the studio] we had to redo everything we did when we started drinking [ laughs]. We just had a lot of fun

Gothique: Many people in the press call you a workaholic. Has your lifestyle ( constant touring, recording) taken a toll on your personal life?

Peter: Well, that is my life. I'm totally dedicated. I'm divorced for the second time now. That's my life, you know- on the road

Gothique: How do you see the future of metal?

Peter: I think as long as there's something interesting coming out, there's going to be a following

Gothique: Do you think it was better, say, ten years ago?

Peter: Nah, I don't think so

Gothique: I don't know, I'm starting to feel nostalgic

Peter: Well, it's always like that. I mean, people want to hear an old song because everybody was younger then [ laughs]

Gothique: If you're headlining, can you please play Apocalypse. I always wanted to see it live

Peter: Hey, if we're headlining, sure. Now we only have 40 mins and we're trying to cram in as much as possible. When we get a headline tour, we do one and a half hours so we can do it then

Gothique: Now that Immortal reunited, is Horgh still going to be your permanent drummer?

Peter: Of course. For now the plan for them is to only do a couple of gigs, because they want to make a DVD, they never had the chance to do it before.

Gothique: Thank you for your time. Any last words to your fans?

Peter: As I said, I hope to be back and be headlining bacause it's about time for us [ laughs]