‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans’

This sentence has been overused throughout history, but this time it got a lot more meaning for the Swedish trio Covenant. Armed with a record deal, a huge promotional machine and a very strong album (“Northern Light”) nothing seemed to get in the way to the top. But only one very unfortunate decision seemed to be enough to throw this all away into nothing. It almost seemed to be over and done with for Covenant until they found the support they needed with Synthetic Symphony who graciously gave them the means to record the new album, and now it is almost there.

Before their performance in Amstelveen (4 february) I had the chance to talk to Covenant. Just when I arrived it seemed that the plans had all got out of hand a little, so I had to wait. After some time Hans van Goethem (Dark Entries) joined me. After having eaten a meal together we (Joakim Montelius (Covenant), colleague Hans van Goethem (Dark Entries) and me) decided to do the two interviews at the same time. We got up and made our way to the dressing rooms where Clas Nachmanson and Eskil Simonsson were already sitting, and to our amazement Eskil did not leave right away, he left only after he got a call to do one of his favorite jobs (Sound Engineering).

It strikes me that the gentlemen are also dressed neatly and stylishly in their normal lives. Especcially Joakim was dressed nicely with a beige ribbed suit, Clas had wore his hair drawn back smoothly and wore a dark bleu pinstripe colbert whilst Eskil was darkly dressed.

The interview was held in a very pleasant informal way where Joakim was also handing out some glasses of red wine to both Hans and me. The conversation quickly gets on a roll and we find ourselves talking about the fact that the new album “Skyshaper” is already downloadable through various means. Eskil tells us that he mostly thinks that a shame. “I would so much like to present our new album in all its glory. Perhaps we are a bit old fashioned, but we feel that waiting until the release of an album and then getting it out of the packaging has its own real value and charm. But I cannot honestly blame people for downloading, in my time I was compiling tapes (cassette) I had made from radio recordings, in that sense this all isn't really different than before.”

Talking about compiling music, what can we find on your Ipod?

Eskil: (full of pride shows us his thin black Ipod Nano) “Only music from Covenant, but that is mostly because we use this as our backing track for the performance. For on the bus I've brought German (and other) unknown dance compilations.”
Joakim: “Right now we mostly play our self made punk compilation. But I think that in the past we've probably brought it all. Johnny Cash, 666, Gorillaz and even a very bad euro dance compilation. That was still in the time we toured with Project Pitchfork and where we even managed to almost make them mad with our music... They even stopped to buy themselves a bigger ghetto blaster than we had to out play us” (laughs)

Your new single “Ritual Noise” seems to be sung with a very real sigh of relief that sounds to me to be saying: “We are back and this is what it is what we are all about: Making music”. Is that correct?

Joakim: “Completely right. You still need to be able to tell your listeners something, especially when you've been out of the picture for so long. At one point I really feared that people would have forgotten about us.”
Eskil: “And that is what we are about: Making music, expressing yourself. A term that really is alive in Berlin where I live. Do something because you want to not because you can make large amounts of money with it.”

The reactions about ‘Skyshaper’ are still much divided, do you know what to think about it yourselves?

Clas: “Except for ‘United States of Mind’ we have never been sure if a record would be successful or not. Concerning ‘Skyshaper’ I am still unsure myself. But see, we are always trying to make the best album within our personal capacity.”
Joakim: “After ‘Northern Light’ it was clear to us that we should find ourselves a new direction, that being said we got to try and figure out what we wanted. Compared to all its predecessors this album has the most in common with ‘Sequencer’ because of its many layers. More than ‘Sequencer’ actually.”

Nobel price bass drum

With a song like ‘Sweet and Salty’ one can hear that you are definitely trying to break out of the typical Covenant sound, is that right?

Joakim: “That is one of the songs on ‘Skyshaper’ where I am most proud of. Especially because of the bass drum. I've made this on the legendary drum machine TR 909 and enhanced this with various effects and even a real drum in order to let these drums sound like real fat kicks. (Laughing:) I believe I should get a nobel price for best bass drum.”

‘Skyshaper’ has become a very emotional record, this even more than ‘Northern Light’ was. ‘Greater than the sun’ tends to give one a very cold and lonely feeling. ‘Pulse’ on the contrary is a very catching song that takes you away with its mysterious text: ‘I’m falling out of cars’ . What is this actually about?

Joakim: “Thnx, that is exactly like we felt when we made these songs and it is good to hear that we've achieved to convey that feeling. The lyrics on ‘Pulse’ are, just like those in ‘The Men’, written by Eskil. He has based them on a story by Jeff Noon and on one of his own experiences: During a drive after the German M’Era Luna-festival somewhere in the late 90's. We were driving on a highway in the middle of the night and we were quite under influence and to top it off we had a really heated argument about god knows what. At some point it was all too much for Eskil who then got out of the car and crawled onto the front window (mind you the car was driving at least 100km p/h. Everybody was yelling and luckily the girl behind the steering wheel brought the car slowly to a stop. It was this close to the end of Covenant. With ‘Pulse’ we tried to recall those feelings that you've totally lost it and that you want to break free.”

Dark thoughts

With ‘Northern Light’ you truly had all the means you could ever wish for at your disposal, Now with ‘Skyshaper’ you are once again all alone, how did you start at this tremendous task?

Clas: “Especially Eskil was stressed by this situation. It became an idea-fixe to get to the same level as on 'Northern Light' or even to do beter then that.”
Joakim: “The reason that ‘Skyshaper’ has taken so long to make was partly because we needed a year to fight against the heritage of ‘Northern Light’. That was truly paralyzing but we eventually managed to get over it.”

With ‘Northern Light’ it seemed to be your final break through, but because of corporate cutbacks at record gigant Sony the sub-label Ka2 closed down. What went through your heads after that whole ordeal?

Joakim: “I really felt like hitting some of those suits at Sony. (suddenly looks very serieus and sombre) After everything had gone wrong there were times that I really thought my days as an musician were numbered. It was all so frustrating and stupid. Sony (Ka2) had invested a lot of money in us, everything was running smoothly and then all of the sudden they pulled the plug without even trying to earn their money back. That I simply do not understand.”
Clas: “We have always been aware that signing with a mayor could very well mean the end to your career. Because of this we had signed a one album deal only, to cover us from getting stuck. Although I did have to adjust our perspective from time to time. I've finally decided to forget the idea of ever becoming the number one band. We see so many bands on the same level as us who are touring all the time to get as much money out of it as possible. We don't feel that way any more, we would rather earn less and live a bit more comfortably. And who knows, perhaps we can also live financially independently through music one day.”

Did you see financial dark times lately?

Joakim: “Absolutely, it's been rough.” (is silent after)
Clas: “I've even put in some personal savings into Covenant. With the money that we get from the record label I'm trying to run the groups finances as a small company. We've been managed to get around for three and a half years with the finances we had gotten for only two years. Personally I am quite proud of that achievement.”

For quite some time you've been feeling quite out of it whilst spending a lot of time together in a small studio, what kind of high tensioned situations did that lead to?

Clas: “If we would tell you how one day in the Covenant studio is like we should leave some bits out I'm afraid. (laughs) The day starts out with Eskil playing games on the playstation for about Playstation eight hours straight.”
Joakim: “After which he checks his e-mails for about five hours.”
Clas: “At that time Eskil starts planning what he wants to do and at around four or five in the morning he actually starts working. It is not uncommon that Joakim has left the building an hour before in a horrible state, throwing a computer screen to the ground on his way out.”
Joakim: (laughs) “Regrettably this has actually happened. Making ‘Skyshaper’ was a really slow and devouring task that more then once got us into a fight. But you know, Covenant is about friendship. More than that even, it is almost a relationship. Sometimes I could really strangle Clas, but at the other times I am just really glad and honored that I can be with those two guys.”
Clas: “We've known each other for almost twenty years. We go back a long way, it takes a lot to truly tare us apart.”
Joakim: “In all honesty I'm not at all mourning for what has happened to us in these last few years. If ‘Northern Light’ had truly been a succes, we would probably be in a totally different situation. And because this has happened the way it did we were now able to make ‘Skyshaper’, a really tough but honest album. And in the end we are glad not to have become super stars, some while ago I read the Depeche Mode biography and it hit me that we share a lot of similarities. It would probably have been devastating for Covenant had our ego's run amok like that.”
Experimenting with guitars

We were told that you had been asked to tour alongside Depeche Mode. Was that not a bit of sweet revenge after the comments Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher gave on Swedish television about your clip ‘Stalker’?

Joakim: “Thats right, their tour management had indeed asked our manager about this, but our ‘Skyshaper’-tour was already completely booked. And because touring is almost the only form of income for a musician we couldn't cancel that tour. It is a pity, but to speak of sweet revenge... no. They were not that harsh on the clip, they only though of it a bit too much “techno”.

Another band you've got a strange relationship with: Rammstein. ‘Northern Light’ has been produced with almost all of their crew: producer, art-director, etc. Ironic isn't it? You are not really the guitar type of band.

Joakim: “That is how we are known, but it is a misconception to think that we hate guitars. Clas plays the guitar and there are actually guitar sounds to be found in ‘The Men’.”
Clas: “We've actually thought of taking along a guitar on this tour, but we eventually couldn't do so because there was too little time to prepare. But who knows, perhaps we can get it finished before the second part of the tour. To think how many record labels told us that we should make music with guitars, according to them we could be filthy rich if we did so. Our current music is just too electronic and clinical to score with the wider audience.”

What is your point of view concerning the Hellectro-generation that seems to be a respons to the Future Pop-generation of which you are part?

Joakim: (grins) “Good!, it was about time, the future of Future Pop is gone anyway. But there is this one thing about Hellectro or what you might call it: The repeatedly singing with distorted voices is a bit easy. If you want to sound pissed off there are other ways than the easy distortion they always seem to go for. Future Pop by the way is only one of few genres of which one of the bands came up with the name. Although that seems to be really like Ronan (Harris van VNV Nation, red.) anyway.”

Joakim, the last time we spoke in the summer of 2002 (Eurorock festival) it was only a half year after the terrorist attacks in september. You said to me then that the world as it is now gives you the same uncertain and anxious feeling as it gave you when you were young. How is that feeling now?

Joakim: “It hasn't improved much, right?. It has become even worse. You might even say that this year has been the darkest year in recent history. That we feel that way is something you can most certainly hear on ‘Skyshaper’. There are little happy up-tempo songs on it. But I've not lost hope on mankind. Everybody seems to realise we are in a bad state and that we have finally hit rock bottom. Together we can and we must get out of this mess.”

Is there one piece of advice or piece of wisdom you would like to share with your listeners?

Clas: “Be open in heart, mind and spirit. Call me a bit corny but I wish to make a friend out of every fan (which is a very nasty word btw.). Friends are the most valuable to gain from a thing such as music.”

After the interview we run into a remarkably talkative Eskil. We decide to ask about the car incident that inspired Eskil to write the lyrics for ‘Pulse’ which he elegantly answers by saying “everybody has his own version of that story”. In the mean while the popular band Rotersand has kicked of the evening. It was very nice to find Clas standing by my side whilst watching the Rotersand show. Together we enjoyed the Rotersand performance.

All in all I thought the conversation / interview with Covenant very friendly, nice, open and inspiring and when they told me I was more than welcome to come back later in the evening I could do nothing more than accept. Eventually we talked more and listened to good music (sometimes not familiar to my ears). I also spoke with the Covenant sound engineer (ex Goethes Erben) and Krischan (Rotersand).

With thanks to Hans van Goethem ( http://www.darkentries.be ) with whom I enjoyed doing this interview.