Interview with Fredlös
(Robert Lindgren, Tomas Karlson,
Alex Hellid)
Originally published in Kronos Mortus
in English and Hungarian languages
Hail Fredlös, first of all, my congratulations on your fantastic debut album, called “Fredlös” you unleashed on the 10th of February, this year through Threeman Recordings. (In my Hungarian review I’ve marked 10 and it will be for sure on the top of my favorite releases this year). Introduce your band members, and guest musicians and tell the readers about the beginnings of Fredlös, please.
- Hi, and thank you for your kind words. The band started out of the ashes of earlier musical projects. Robert, Fredrik, Liv, Victor, and I started the band “Barbro says No” which was a more traditional rock/metal band. Then I wanted to write lyrics in Swedish and we all had the desire to create darker music. And that’s how Fredlös was born. We recruited a new drummer, Iman Zolgharnian. Then Tomas met Alex (“I just could not resist!”) and he liked our work and joined the band.
Guest musicians on the album are:
Erik Grawsiö from Månegarm on vocals, “Våt Varm Jord” and “Fredlös”. He’s A dear friend and has been a great inspiration for us.
Martin Björklund on violin, “Våt Varm Jord”, “Otto” and “Requiem”. He’s also from Norrtälje and is a multi-instrumental genius with his own band Mercury-X.
Britta Zetterström does Kulning-Vocals on “Requiem”, a brilliant singer and chairman in a historical society that is focused on the Viking era.
I’ve been possessed by Medieval Age history since 1988 and I’ve found your lyrics very interesting. I learned a lot from you. Enlighten us in brief about Fredlös-lyrical conception.
Tomas: The inspiration for the lyrics comes from the religious oppression that accelerated after the plague in the mid-14th century. The image of God became increasingly strict. Sin and shame were at the center. Life was a valley of mourning in anticipation of purgatory. Misogyny became increasingly strong among sexually fixated prelates and turned to witch-burnings or heresy trials.
The great death struck Sweden in 1350. Initially, the plague wiped out a large part of the population. The exact death toll is unknown, but some historians estimate it to be ½ or 2/3 of the population between 1350 and 1420. As usual, the clergy blamed the population and explained the plague as God’s response to human sinfulness.
After the plague outbreak in the middle of the 14th century, a colder climate followed which further added to the plagues of the population. At the same time, intense battles were going on between noble families that were similar to the struggle between mafia families today, and that ultimately affected the population. As usual, the Church blamed the sinful people who incurred the wrath of God.
During the 1400s and 1500s, there were a large number of peasant uprisings throughout Europe, including Sweden. They were often beaten down very brutally and seldom succeeded. The peasants often rose up against the innovations introduced by the authorities as well as against oppression, exploitation, and the domination of bailiffs.
On the release day Fredlös published a new video, which I enjoyed so much. That has been your 4th video and do you plan to create new one(s) this year?
- Yes. We make them ourselves and we have been working hard for several months now with the four already released videos. Our ambition is to produce videos for the remaining songs as well and we have ideas for some of them already. We hope they will see the light one by one sometime later this year.
Fredlös will be playing on Månegarm Open Air with a lot of awesome bands. Is there any news about other live performances?
- No, not anything certain yet at this moment :)
I just imagined, how would be awesome a European tour of Fredlös/Månegarm/Entombed :) I know that is impossible at the moment but what do you think about my idea? Alex, Entombed played in Hungary in June 1994 (Unfortunately I was not there but some of my friends were and told me, that your show was amazing). What were your experiences? (I really hope that Fredlös will play in Hungary very soon and I could be there as well to see and meet you live).
Alex: Aaaah! Now that was a great day and night! June 1, 1994, in Budapest at a fantastic packed venue with Napalm Death! That was one of those shows that, to this day, stick out from the rest and that will pop back into my mind on a, it seems, regular basis…as weird as that may sound. That was a mad crazy tour in so many ways I would like to try and sum it up in a book someday just to relive the madness! We had been on the road for a long time, doing a few laps around Canada and the US right before teaming up with Napalm for that European ‘94 Crusade. Something like 10 weeks in US/Canada then two days at home, Stockholm, before something like 52 shows in 54 days. It was brutal…awesomely brutal! People lost their minds for real on that trek. I love the Napalm to death! Good memories… I miss them every day since that tour it seems. People still mention the Budapest show, as you did here, to this day and send pictures. I think I still have a T-shirt someone made for us and so on…it was something else…as you hear I can go on for days about it…so, yes, I would love to come back and do the Fredlös, Månegarm, Entombed show in Hungary. It will be great! Maybe we could invite Napalm too. Is the venue still there? Petőfi Csarnok, Budapest, Hungary? (No, unfortunately not, it was demolished -G) Had to look it up. A special place, a special time, a special tour. All nostalgic and teary-eyed here now. Hopefully, we can meet up at a Fredlös show in Hungary soon! The planets are lining up.
