Interview of IRONMASTER
by MONKEYMETAL aka Troll / ODYMETAL,
11th December 2023.
Answers by Jonas Kjellgren (guitar / bass)
Photos and artworks sent by Jonas Kjellgren.
I call on your memories, tell us about your childhood? When, how and with which group or artist did you discover music?
I really don't remember, I'm sure I heard stuff my parents listened to when I was a toddler but I can't remember what that was. I remember my dad had a cassette with Frank Zappa 'Zoot Allures' that I listened to a lot in headphones when I was 4-5, I don't remember liking the songs that much, it was more that it was such different music compared to all other stuff I heard.
First music I fell in love with though was like Iron Maiden, Motörhead, Kiss, Scorpions, MSG and bands like that. This was back in 1982 when I was about 5.
While growing up more extreme forms of Metal emerged and I liked it faster and louder. Remember when hearing Metallica and Slayer for the first time, mind blown for sure.
Knowing that you are a multi-instrumentalist and singer, what made you want to learn to play a musical instrument and where did you start? Can you give us some background and tell us about this in detail?
My granddad played guitar, bass, accordion and keyboard and my uncle was a professional touring guitar player so there was always music around. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents before and after school because they were living next door to the school I went to up until age 12. So fooling around with those instruments was a given, I did not favor any instrument at the time I enjoyed « playing » all of them (read ; making random noises). My mother also had a guitar and taught me one chord, the A-chord which I played everyday from age 6 to 7 haha... Did'nt know there was more than one chord to learn. My grandfather showed me some stuff to, he was the best, never any pressure he let me develop in my own pace. I remember first time I played an electric guitar with distorted heavy metal sound, my uncle came and visit my grandparents and he had brought one of his electric guitars with him and a Rockman (an amp simulator looking just like a Sony Walkman)I plugged in the guitar and put on the headphones, my jaw dropped to the floor..I found the meaning of life so to speak haha... I think I was 8 at the time. He taught me stuff as well, his a great guitar player still to this day. Now he plays only Jazz, but he used to play rock stuff back in the day.
Started a band shortly after that together with a class mate who owned a drum kit, we took the killer band name ; Eyes Snake. We did our first and only gig at the age of 10, drummers dad went up onto the stage when we played and tryed to adjust my amp, he thought it was broken because it really sounded so terrible, but it was not..I just had all the knobs on 10 and played worse than a drunken sailor. Age 11-12 I started to play together with a couple of guys in my neighbourhood and we sticked together up until age 17 that band became a band known as 'Pexilated' we recorded several demos and did some shows. We were a band on and off from 1989 to 1994 I think.
Not everyone is a musician and you play a 7-string guitar, what extra does that give you compared to a 6-string?
I have always loved that thick sound from a down tuned guitar since the first time I heard it, but also missing the high range you get with a regular tuned guitar, it has a certain 'twang' that I like. So for me that extra string is not to be able to get lower notes since you get the exact same sound out of a 6 string tuned to B standard, it makes it possible to have the best of 2 worlds for me at least. Classic sounding Heavy Metal lead work and total Death Metal sludge sound when needed. Only downside is that it's not that comfortable playing a 7string compared to a 6string, but on the other hand I don't play music because it's comfortable haha
About yours sponsors, who was the first? How did this happen? And if there have been changes, why?
I was fully endorsed by Dean Guitars between maybe 2007-2010 getting free guitars which was nice, but I like to play a lot of different brands so endorsements are not very suitable for me. I play ESP, Jackson, Charvel and Ibanez these days without any endorsement, better to be 'free' (at least for me). All the brands have their pros and cons as they say. Also I was endorsed by Randall Amps for a while and got a killer amp for free, but it's the same there.. I like to use a bunch of different amplifiers to mix it up between albums and even between songs.
You were a singer in CARNAL FORGE and DELLAMORTE, guitarist in CENTINEX and SCAR SYMMETRY, can you give us a summary of the career you had with each of these groups while you were and the album you preferred and why?
Had a great time being in all of those bands, learnt a lot and it was super fun all the way. All those guys are my brothers for life for sure! Hard question, I could write one book for each one of those bands but really don't have the time at the moment haha... I'll try and keep it short, here we go.
First I was the Vocalist in Dellamorte, we did a gig together with 'In Thy Dreams' and the members of that band were putting together a new band called 'Carnal Forge' they needed a vocalist and they saw me on that gig i think and asked me to join their band so I did that short after that gig. Guitar player from Dellamorte ; Johan Jansson also did vocals in the band Centinex and they needed a driver for a 2-3week tour in Spain in 1998, I applied for the the driving job but also learnt their complete setlist on guitar so the driver job became a driver/guitarist job instead which was a great upgrade in my book. We did a bunch of albums and tours, so much fun ! Also my studio was getting more and more work so I recorded and mixed a ton of bands during the early 2000's. One day in 2003 Omer Akay (Cold Records, Centinex’ label) called me and asked if I could write an album kind of in the style of Hypocrisy or something, he wanted to release that album on his label, I was supposed to put together a band and make an album and deliever it basically. That band would become Scar Symmetry. I recorded a demo in my studio with a band called (Thrawn) (Later called Altered Aeon) the drummer / guitarist / bassplayer Henrik Ohlsson (he played all the instruments on that demo) I was impressed, and he brought a guitar player to the studio ; Per Nilsson to play some guitar solos on the songs, he was insanely good. He played so fast and accurate that I started laughing, mindblowing playing for sure. So when asked to do this album I asked Henrik and Per to join my project. Henrik suggested we would add Christian Älvestam as a singer to the band, initially I was planning on doing the vocals myself, I'm happy I did'nt since Christian’s vocals turned out awesome !!
My old friend and neighbour at the time Kenneth Seil joined on bass so we had a complete lineup when recording the first album. This was 2004 so at the same time we were touring and doing albums with Centinex and Carnal Forge, Carnal Forge wanted to tour more since the band was on a roll after releasing 'The More You Suffer' I quit the band because I really did not have the time to fit more touring into the busy schedule and was putting so much time into the Scar Symmetry project, I worked for many months everyday with those first Scar Symmetry album. So 2004-2008 was crazy haha... My Favourite albums from those bands would be ; Dellamorte 'Home Sweet Hell…', Carnal Forge 'The More You Suffer', Centinex 'World Declension', Scar Symmetry 'Holographic Universe'. I also had a 5th band going not mentioned in this interview namely ; World Below, we did 3 albums and also some live shows between 2002 and 2006, the style is traditional doom metal and my favourite album with World Below is the last one we did ; Repulsion. Total epic doom check it out !!!
Who is behind the creation of IRONMASTER, how did it happen and tell us about Roberth Karlsson and Janne Jaloma who accompanies you, why them? And tell us about the choice of name and why?
Ironmaster came to life out of an happy accident. So I was selling of some guitars I had when I played with Scar Symmetry, 2 Dean Razorback 7's and an ESP Forest 7. I hadn't touched them for years so the strings were all rusty and stuff like that so I had to clean them up, change strings and do a setup on them. After that was done I had to try them out in an amp to make sure all the electronics worked as they should, and BOOM 1 hour later I had the guitars for the first Ironmaster song recorded haha... It was just so much fun, I had forgot how good it felt just churning out those death metal riffs. I sent some songs to Janne and he liked it and was available to come over and play the drums just some weeks after. Also I needed a vocalist for the band and Roberth Karlsson is a longtime friend and my favourite DeathMetal vocalists of all time, he also wanted to join and he is the one who came up with the band name 'Ironmaster'. I asked him if he could come up with a name he worked in a cinema running the projector (or whatever its called these day haha I have no idea) he looked around in the movie theaters archives and found a 'Conan-like' movie called The Ironmaster and suggested that name and me and Janne liked it as well. Hard to come up with bandnames these days all the cool metal sounding names are taken, was way more easier to come up with bandnames in the 90's for sure.
IRONMASTER is a trio, will it stay that way? And when you do concerts, will you use recordings or use session musicians? If so, do you already have any names in mind and why?
We will add a bass player and an guitar player for the live shows, I have some guys in mind but they don't know it yet so I don't think I can mention them in this interview at the moment.
It would be nice to have a 2 more members as permanent member so to speak, hiring session players is not the best in the long run, and using pre-recorded bass or guitar doesn't feel right to me, not dissing any bands who walks that path though, I know its hard to find good reliable players and also maybe its an economic thing !? I have no idea, we have some synths / samples in Ironmaster as well and I don’t think we will have keyboard player in the lineup so we either skip those parts or put them on a computer, we'll see how we solve that when times come. Probably just skip those keys since there's also a lot of hassle bringing that kind of equipment around hmmm... We'll see
For those who don’t know you yet, how would you describe IRONMASTER’s music?
Fast and aggressive Death / Thrash / Black a mix of Swedish and American styles basically, try to just write stuff that comes naturally, lots of 'out of the box' stuff free flowing writing, not using the brain more stuff from the gut while doing the stuff, some parts may sound like they are well thought out or whatever but it's really not.. I would say Ironmaster's songs are made by 'careless' composing haha, not giving a fuck
If I'm not saying anything stupid you have your own recording studio "Black Lounge Studios", since when and what made you want to have a recording studio?
In all that you have produced, which groups have you had a crush on?
I have always liked recording stuff since I was a kid on a boombox or whatever was available. Borrowed a tascam porta studio 4-track from my uncle when I was about 12 and recorded tons of stuff with that for fun. All the bands I played with we always recorded rehearsals on a boombox, how ever it was hard to hear what was going on on those tapes so I was interested in getting a bit better sound quality if possible. Also my band Pexilated recorded with Dan Swanö in Unisound in 1993(or 94 not sure) and it was so much fun, I knew I wanted to do what he was doing, twiddling knobs and saying ; please try it one more time from the top haha... The we recorded with Peter Tägtgren in Abyss Studio with Dellamorte in 1995 and it was the same thing there, he was great and really an great inspiration for me. So around -95 I think, I started to rent studio time in a local studio and recorded local bands as well as my own bands. And in 1999 I got my own studio which have been my daytime job ever since. I really enjoyed all the bands I've worked with in so many ways.
These days I only do mixing and mastering except for Sabaton who I both record and mix.
It's almost Christmas, tell us how this celebration takes place in Sweden, the traditions, the culinary specialties, the drinks that accompany the meal until Santa Claus arrives and the distribution of gifts?
In Sweden Christmas is usually one big beer-drinking competition, but these days I have my own family and two small kids (4 and 9) so there's not much stuff like that going on in my house.
We eat meatballs and potatoes and fish, then Santa comes knocking on the door around 5pm we a big bag full of Christmas presents. In Sweden he always says this ; Hoe hoe, are there any nice kids in the house, then the kids scream YESSSS (if they've been nice, otherwise they hide behind their mom haha) And a few gifts are given to the kids, the grown- ups might get something as well but it's absolutely not mandatory.
Do you have anything to add in conclusion?
Thanks for the great interview, and I wish happy holidays to all of you who read this!
Remember to be nice to eachother the short time we have here on earth.
On a sidenote ; Of course I have another band in the pipeline (sorry haha) we are called ; Nekrodawn. I play some guitar and sing (would not call it singing but you get the point) Johan Jansson( My brother from Dellamorte / Centinex) handles the bass like a champion and Henrik Axelsson (Hypocrisy, ex The Crown) plays the drums like a complete mad man. The style is some kind of Old School Death Metal. The album is done, will be released in 2024 for sure.
Best Regards/Jonas
IRON MASTER
IRONMASTER
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