The mighty Entombed are still one of my all-time favourite bands, their monumental debut album “Left hand path” is in my top five album list and in my opinion this is the best death metal album that ever came out of Scandinavia (probably it’s the best death metal album ever anyway). I really love all of their stuff, the Nihilist stuff from 1987/1988 as well as their new releases. Not that long ago Entombed started their own website (which is great by the way, you should go there, but only after having read this interview, hehe…), and I got in touch with Max who runs the site. He made this interview possible, thanks Max! But now go ahead and enjoy this interview that was done with Entombed’s bass player Jörgen (who used to be in the legendary Swedish death metal band Grave by the way, but I’m sure all you know that)…

Hi Jörgen, anything to start this interview off with?

Jörgen: I am Jörgen, hell-come!

Now it's been some months since "Uprising" came out. How were the reactions to that album from fans, magazines and friends? Are you still satisfied with the result of the album or is there anything you would like to have done different?

Jörgen: It seems like everybody really think it´s a great album. It got really good reviews from both fans and ´zines. And that´s great of course, as we are really happy about the album. There´s not much that we wanna change on it, maybe some small things that could have been done different, but that´s the same with every album. I think it´s the best album we´ve done since “Wolverine Blues”.

Some people said after the release of "Uprising" that you used your old logo again and wrote songs that were more in the vein of “To ride,...” than “Same difference” because of the fact that you tried to regain some fans you lost after “Same difference”. Well that's not my opinion actually, but what do you think about these statements?

Jörgen: We used the logo cause it looked better with the skull that we used, that’s the only reason for that. About the songs, they are not that different than “Same Difference” or “To ride…” or “Wolverine Blues”, we decided to write a more intense album, coz it suits us better live. “Same Difference” had a lot of songs that we couldn’t play live. We probably lost a few fans on “Same Difference”, but we had a lot of new fans as well. We never really think about that too much, we do what we wanna do, so we can walk out of the studio and feel proud about what we have done.

On “Uprising" there are no writing credits for the single songs. Who wrote most of the songs or did you all write them together?

Jörgen: Well, Uffe wrote most of the songs, I wrote “The itch”, “Something out of nothing” and “Won’t back down” and Peter wrote the music for “In the Flesh”. I wrote the lyrics for my songs and Uffe wrote the lyrics for his songs, then me and Uffe wrote “In the Flesh” together.

How about tours for the "Uprising" album, I heard you were support for some shows on the Iron Maiden tour, is that right? If so, how was that tour? How were the reactions of the Maiden fans and did you meet the Maiden guys? Did you get along well and what did they think about your music?

Jörgen: Yeah, we did a few shows with them, London, Stockholm, and Oslo. And then we did their whole Spain and Portugal leg and then Canada as well. It was great of course. I think the crowd really liked us, of course there is people at those shows that don’t care who supports a band like Iron Maiden, but all in all I think most parts of the crowd was really into our set. Slayer was on a few of those shows as well, which was amazing (I can imagine – Stefan). We did have a few beers with both of the bands. They were all really cool. Nice blokes.

Will there be a headlining tour for the "Uprising" album and with which band would you like to do this tour?

Jörgen: We’ll see. I think we are gonna start recording a new album instead. But we’ll see what happens next year.

Talking about the photo on the inner sleeve of the "Uprising" album, on which tour was that picture taken and where?

Jörgen: I think it was from a gig we did here in Stockholm.

You did a lot of cover songs over the years, but they were all released as b-sides to singles or on compilations, but now you have this cover on the "Uprising" album. Why did you decide to put a cover song on a regular album and why did you choose that particular song?

Jörgen: Well, we played a festival here in Sweden, in 1998 I think, and we wanted to have some cool songs to play, so we rehearsed that song, “America” by Motörhead, “The Anti-Christ” by Slayer, and “The Truth” by Master (Yeah! – Stefan). And we played them and thought that “Scottish Hell” sounded really good live, so we decided to record it and then it ended up on the record as well.

Why did you record the album in a different studio than "Same difference"? Didn't you like the sound of "Same..." in retrospect?

Jörgen: First of all, it’s a very expensive studio. One of the finest in Sweden. We liked it but we didn’t wanna do it again. We recorded a demo before the album with Nico, and it was great. So we decided to record it where he worked at the time. We will probably record with him for the next album as well, but probably in an other studio.

Did you ever think about going back to Sunlight Studios and/or recording an album with Tomas Skogsberg again, the one that did record your early albums and demos?

Jörgen: The thoughts have been there, but never happened. In between the “Same...” and “Uprising” we went to Sunlight and recorded 2 cover songs. They sound ok, but Tomas is a very busy man, and we don’t have time to wait around for that long when we decide to record something. We want things to happen fast.

Now some questions about the older days of Entombed will follow: There is a 7" around that consists of the two songs from the Nihilist "Drowned" demo and it has the same cover as that demo. Is that a bootleg or did you release that on your own?

Jörgen: I don’t know who released it to be honest, I was not in the band at the time, and never had the 7” myself. But I know it was not a bootleg. It was an official release.

Please give me a short comment on all these ex-members of Entombed: Leffe Cuzner, David Blomquist, Johnny Hedlund, Lars Rosenberg, Nicke Andersson.

Jörgen: Leffe was the guitarist before Uffe, he moved to Canada, don’t know what he is up to nowadays. David was only in for a short while, he’s in Dismember. Johnny was in Nihilist, when he got kicked out of the band he started Unleashed. Lars was the bass player before I joined, he started to play with Therion, moved to Argentina for awhile, and is now in a band here in Stockholm called Roachpowder. Nicke left the band to do his other band The Hellacopters.

Talking about Leffe, the last time I heard from him was some rumour that he supposedly is living in Canada and playing in some reggae band. Is that right and are you still in touch with him?

Jörgen: I think Alx still is in contact with him. He still lives in Canada as far as I know.

What do you think about all the Earache re-releases, just as the Compilation album, the live record (and video), and the re- release of the first three albums?

Jörgen: They are just made for the reason that Earache wanna earn more money. We have nothing to do with them what so ever. The covers for the re-releases looks like Xerox copies! Don’t buy that shit, it’s a rip-off.

Did you ever think about releasing the three Nihilist demos and the Entombed demo on one CD? Would you like this idea?

Jörgen: We had some offers from small underground labels that wanted to do it. I don’t like the idea, those demos should be on cassettes(Right, people should get them through the tape trading scene that hopefully is still alive?! – Stefan)

There are so many great bands coming from Sweden, not only metal bands, but also punk and hardcore acts. What's the reason for the high quality of all these bands in your opinion?

Jörgen: I have no idea, guess we are talented over here.

Are you in touch with some of the Swedish bands and are you still in touch with some of the old school death metal bands (1989 - 1993)?

Jörgen: Of course. Dismember, Grave, Tiamat, all of them.

What do you think about the death metal scene nowadays and do you still listen to this kind of music? I still like it a lot, but only the old bands that I grew up with (the sound that was created between 1989 and 1993), although I like almost all of the new releases of these bands that are still around (that includes of course Entombed, haha).

Jörgen: Me as well. A few nights ago I talked to Chris Reifert (ex Autopsy now in Ravenous) and we said the same thing. There’s that much new stuff that I get in to. But when for example Immolation or Morbid Angle or Dismember etc release something new I have a listen, and most of the times I like it. But all the new bands nowadays don’t have what Death Metal bands had in the late ‘80´s. Something’s missing (I think the feeling of the death metal sound of those days – Stefan) . Maybe the will to scare and piss people off. I don’t know. The Ravenous album is great, but that’s because these guys have been in bands since Death Metal was born!

As you have your own website running, what do you think about the internet in general?

Jörgen: I use it a lot. It’s a great way of communicating with friends all over the world. There is a lot of shit that comes with it too of course, but that goes with everything I guess.

I guess that's it, do you have anything to add to this interview and how did you like it?

Jörgen: Not really, check in to our website, www.entombed.net, and get updated with what we are doing etc. There’s a lot to see there. The interview was cool, especially coz it made me forget about my hangover for an hour or so (hey, you’re welcome, haha – Stefan)! Thanx.

(Stefan Münch)