Jag är osäker på var konsttidnings-projektet ligger just nu, men det vore ju synd och skam om min intervju blev liggande i all evighet. Så nu publicerar jag intervjun här, på det fantastiska språket engelska så alla kan läsa.
Purfärsk bild tagen av Patrik Hellström
Great Album Covers, Wolf and Hans Arnold and Thomas Holm
Wolf formed in 1995 with their minds set on playing heavy metal, just the way it was played when the members grew up. A big dose of New Wave of British Heavy Metal with some German hard rock like Accept and Scorpions thrown in for good measure. The self titled debut album was released in 2000 and it most definitely received a reaction from the world of heavy metal. A significant part of the attention was focused on the album cover art made by legendary Swedish horror artist Hans Arnold.
Hans Arnold was born in Switzerland in 1925. After studying art in Luzern, then living and working in Paris he ended up in Sweden in 1948. Between the years 1954 and 1979 he became well known in Sweden for his horror illustrations in the weekly magazine VeckoRevyn. He also illustrated lots of books for both adults and children. Outside of Sweden he is mostly known for the album cover of the “Greatest Hits” collection by ABBA in 1976. Arnold lives in Stockholm and still illustrates.
Wolf singer and guitar player Niklas Stålvind picks up the phone to talk with me about what commonly is called the “Baboon wolf”.
Tell me about the Hans Arnold cover, I think it’s fantastic.
- So do we, but there are others that disagree. I’ve always wanted to work with Hans Arnold. I grew up with his drawings, one of my favourite books as a kid was “Jag är en Varulvsunge” by Gunnel Linde with his cover painting. He has always been a great source of inspiration.
Me and another guy in Wolf visited Hans Arnold in his workspace in Stockholm. It was so much fun, and we got to see a lot of stuff. He probably has ten thousand pictures unused, he’s drawing all the time. At first we wanted him to draw us as wolves but it didn’t turn out good and you could tell he didn’t have the inspiration for it. So he did it his own way and made this baboon wolf. When we saw it we thought it was excellent.
He’s pretty old, is he still a cool guy?
- Yes, he’s cool and really fit. And he talks with a cool Swiss accent and has a really nice moustasche.
Did he get to listen to your music?
- Well, I can’t remember if we gave him the music or just the lyrics. I think he only wanted the lyrics. He incorporated a lot of our lyrics in the first sketches. The sign on the back of the cover that says “The Abyss” which is the studio we recorded the album in, it originally said “Rue Morgue”. But that was just too much, we knew people were going to scream “Iron Maiden-rip off” anyway so we had him change that.
When I saw the cover I immediately had flashbacks to my childhood and recognized the artist. But how was the reaction outside of Sweden?
- Especially in Germany, where everything has to follow standard form A1, they just screamed. They didn’t get it at all, they didn’t even want to review the album. “Why iz there a children’s drawing on ze cover? It’s just wrong!”. It was wrong according to the book of heavy metal. The book of heavy metal says you need a photoshoped or airbrushed piece of crap on the cover. That was exactly what we wanted to avoid, but you’re not supposed to do anything original if you want to sell albums in Germany.
- The artwork fits the album like a glove. It sounds old and it looks old, it’s perfect! Our original plan was to use Hans Arnold on every album. But after the first album we weren’t allowed to. And I guess we understood that no one outside of Sweden would “get it”. So for our second album “Black Wings” there was only one person left to use, Thomas Holm who has worked with Mercyful Fate. And he wasn’t cheap.
But when the two first albums were released in Germany by Massacre records they changed the cover artwork on both the first and the second album.
- They’re fucking insane! If “Black Wings” doesn’t work, what will? It’s crazy! They just haven’t understood anything. They must have started listening to metal in the nineties at the same time they bought their first computer. Fucking retards! I mean, it’s so beautiful, you can even see the canvas it was painted on. I understand that a computer made cover is cheap, but who the fuck thinks that is better looking than something made by a real artist who paints with a real brush.
- The Massacre-covers are something we want to forget, we are really ashamed of them. We regret that we didn’t have more power and managed to just say No. But it was such a hectic time and we understood that they wouldn’t use the Hans Arnold-cover. When we saw their version of the covers we just laughed. It looks like the guitar player from Hammerfall, bald and all, with a lot of blood and swords in a photoshoped pile of shit. And that is supposed to be better than Hans Arnold and Thomas Holm?! I just can’t understand it, sure there is something called difference in taste, but in this case it is about right and wrong.
There really aren’t many album covers around today that provokes a reaction and inspires you, I think it is fantastic. Like when you were a kid and bought albums just because the cover looked cool.
- Exactly. I looked at the cover artwork a lot. I have always appreciated a piece of really well made handy work, it’s as if the music gets an illustration.
Do you have any favourite album covers?
- Well, ”Live after Death” by Iron Maiden is great. All Iron Maiden covers up to “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” are personal favourites. Including all the 12” singles they released. I also like “Holy Diver” and “The Last in Line” by Dio and “Sad Wings of Destiny” by Judas Priest. When it comes to albums with photos on it I really love the first Wasp album. It is so cool and typical for the time.
Att hitta bilder på de tyska utgåvorna har visat sig vara skitsvårt. Hela Wolf jublar!
Wolf på Myspace
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar