Wenn man an Schweden und Power Metal denkt, dann kommt einem wohl vor allem ein Name in den Sinn: Sabaton. Seit 1996 haben sie sich einen großen Namen in genau dieser Szene gemacht. Auf dem Greenfield Festival in Interlaken hatte unsere Redakteurin Pia die Ehre mit Pär Sundström zu sprechen, dem letzten aktiven Gründungsmitglied von Sabaton.
Frontstage Magazine: You’re from Sweden. Now you are in Switzerland – what’s the main difference between the two countrys except the language or the mountains?
Pär: What is the differnece? I mean I love Switzerland. I came here often. My sister used to live here thrity years or something. She lived in Lausanne for a while. When I visited her, that was my first time in Switzerland. I was maybe 14 years old and I thought it was great and beautiful and I came back many times. Now I’ve been here for the winter two times, the last two years for a little bit of skiing and enjoying the beautifil view, so I’d say I love it here. And Sweden is for me sort of such a home, so I don’t judge it the same way I judge other places. I don’t know Sweden is still the most beautiful place on earth. But here it is extremely fantastiv so that’s way I go away.
Frontstage Magazine: And what’s the main difference playing Greenfield in contrast to other concert locations. What comes to your mind at first?
Pär: Well I can’t really say because when we walk out on stage it’s nighttime. But when we walk out of the tourbus in the morning it was a phenomanal view. It’s so fresh and it really really gives a lot of energy! I think it was a first impression of the day ad it will affect the mood for the rest of the day. So even if we don’t see the mountains when we play, we think of them.
Frontstage Magazine: Legends is the title of your current album – who is the ultimative legend? It could be someone from your private sorroundings or as well some other musician. Who would you say is your private legend and why?
Pär: That’s hard. i mean there’s some musician that I like. Scorpions would be one of them I really like!
Frontstage Magazine: Your current tour runs with the title “The Legendary Tour”, the last tour of yours were called “The Great Tour” and “The Tour to end all tours” – do you think it’s even possible to get another more epic title for the following tours?
Pär: Yeah we just gonna find one when we’re going to concentrate let’s say of the next chapter. The Sabaton History. This is not something we thought about yet. We are currently on the Legends album so we focusing on that.
Frontstage Magazine: Now let’s talk a bit about your stage setting. If you have to change a little bit and need to exchange the tank with something from an amusement park like a Ferris wheel or something like that – what would it be?
Pär: Wow that’s interesting. It would be pretty funny to see the whole band going around on that or on some wooden horses or something. But I think we wouldn’t play so well while doing that so what could we do, I love a rollercoaster so let’s go with a rollercoaster on stage and I’m riding it around.
Frontstage Magazine: Okay so when you are on stage everything’s seems pretty perfect and impressive – do you prefer perfectly staged shows or are you living for the improvised moments as well?
Pär: I think the best ia somewhere in between. So because we have a lot of special effects, some parts need to be staged otherwise we might burn to death. But it also needs some kind of free spirit on the stage. we need to be allowed to be ourselves to joke around, play around and not be bound by rules and stuff. So the perfect Sabaton show is a little bit in between.
Frontstage Magazine: And now let’s switch from English to your mothers tongue: Swedish. What is in your opinion the Swedish word everybody should know?
There is always the funny word called „Lagom„. It doesn’t exist anywhere else and it means something like not to much, not too little, not too high, not too low. Somewhere in the middle. Kind of alright.
Fotocredits: Johanna Lippke
