The Art of War Pt. I

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

After a long discussion with Vreth in August 2019, we came to a conclusion that if we're not going to book the studio soon we might as well just call it quits. We did Blodsvept three years after Nifelvind and back then I was worried about us "slowly sliding into the category of the band who has made something in the past"- a bit like black metal Saxon, if you prefer. Nobody wants to be that black metal Saxon.

(Yes, we're not exactly black metal because the most important aspect is missing, but you probably got the point.) 

 

 

STEP ONE – Defining the outcome. 

We all wanted to make a new album. I knew that while some people wouldn't mind playing "10 years of Trollhammaren", then 15 and then finally a 20-year-two-months-three-weeks anniversary tours, many of us were on the verge of rather quitting than making that sort of a living joke of ourselves we were about to approach... if not being there already. The black metal Saxon was strong in this one. New music must you make, old Padawan.

For me, it was just that I didn't know anymore how the fuck we should sound like due to serious musical disagreements within the band. I didn't even like most of the music I had made myself thus far and felt most of it sounded like an epitome of a bland compromise and lacked all energy. However, there was one semiready song which I liked but thought everyone else would hate- so I never even bothered to even finish it.
But as I felt there was nothing to lose, I mumbled something about hell and high waters and finished and prepared a full demo of That Only One Song (tm). Presenting it to Vreth first, we then polished it a bit and he then sent it to the guys and told that if they like it, we'd love to start planning recording that song and many others. 

It took about a week to get the song greenlit from half of the band which was enough, after which I was given a mandate to start negotiating us studio time from my friend Nino at Sonic Pump Studios. After getting the studio arranged, it was already early September, we had a studio in less than six months, one song, half of the band and a vision how a couple of us thought the album should sound like. 




STEP TWO - How to get there. 




Counting in the fact that everybody should actually get their individual parts in advance for rehearsing them and we would also need to practice the songs together (I was still assuming that the people who weren’t really talking much were still planning to play in this album), I could already feel the schedule shrinking faster than my balls in that chilly breeze of time. Nevertheless, I felt simultaneously extremely focused, confident and prepared, because I had a plan. Kind of. 

I realized that most of those ideas I had half-heartedly done in order to "sound like Finntroll in 2020" sounded like lazy, middle-aged men trying to play heavy rock coated with synths and ethnic instruments, which was the complete fucking antithesis to everything I actually wanted to do. No wonder I couldn't get anything out of those! So I spent the whole September going through all of them again for the umpteenth time while simultaneously writing new ideas down, but this time I listened the old ones with a different mindset, mercilessly dumping all the boring stuff away. I was so fed up of the terms "groove" and "midtempo" I could scream. I wanted to be fast and energetic, simpler and more deadly. Who knows- maybe just a cry of help of a metalhead over 40 refusing to grow old and lazy - but in short, in the terms of attitude and (d)anger I wanted more Eliytres and less Skövlarens Död. 

My plan was dark and impenetrable. Or, if you prefer- so cunning “you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel”. In order to make this album to sound like how I wanted it to sound, I would need to make a lot of music that fulfilled that criteria and would be approved by most of the band. Makes sense, huh? But as time was running short, I needed to roll up my sleeves and start working towards it.

The first iteration of the album was a plain text file. It had "A", "B" and "C"- list of ideas. The A- list was reserved for fully done songs and it looked rather sad and empty with that one and lonely entry. The B- list was reserved for "to do", and consisted of three older songs that had potential but needed to be reworked from scratch if we were to use them. And finally, the C-list sported four "wild cards", a.k.a stuff that had a bit of something interesting hidden either within a musical pile of badness or something that was completely unfinished. To this date, that C-list remains untouched.

In order to be efficient, I wanted to approach the songwriting process in a bit more old school way. I tried to keep my hands off from the computer thus preventing getting lost in trying out endless possibilities instead of actually THINKING through and writing those ideas down first. As my old tablet broke broke down conveniently, a tremendous help for actual writing was to actually buy a new one with a stylus pen. Now I could take notes even at the middle of the night in my own bed if I got an idea- and since my brain being constantly overtuned due to neurological "features" of mine, that happened a lot. 




STEP THREE - Weighing the risks. 




Come October, I had talked a lot about the musical direction with Vreth. I was excited, had a ton of new individual ideas and two completely new full songs which I quickly demoed one day after work and sent to him for first iteration. Those two new songs represented faster and a bit blacker material than some other members originally wanted to do, so I was a bit nervous when sending them out. And to be honest, that nervousness was mostly because there was also a plan B, which was way more dark in case plan A wasn’t impenetrable. 
Plan B would just be...yep, you guessed it- no album. Weren't those songs accepted by the band even with possible iteration(s), I'd cancel the studio as there wouldn't be anything to record and just fucking wash my hands of the whole show for good. But why such a drama queen, mr. Trollhorn?

To be honest, it's not about my ego but more practical reasons. I've been doing albums for the last 20+ years and composed music for clients for the last 15 years as my primary profession. I'm perfectly fine with criticism, iteration and even plain rejection, as that's also a part of the process. But this wasn't a music order for a client: this was the music I personally wanted to do for my own band. But if the rest of the band hated the stuff, how the hell could I even think to ask people to play something they don't like? “Hey guise here is a bunch of bad music pls play and much enjoy hurr durr”? So, obviously making music that nobody wants wasn't really an option. And besides, if they didn't like the stuff they might be right as well! What if the music just actually was bad? After all, the one that got criticized the most last time (that's Två Ormar for you) in the last album didn't turn out to be as good as I thought it would become. RIP my creative decisions, it was nice to know you!

Secondly, there was the fact the material I had done was our only finished material. It wasn't like the band was breathing new songs. If my new music was not liked, there simply wouldn't be time to start over from a scratch or start finishing those twenty new skövlarensdöds in my hard drive. Not to mention that I had absolutely zero motivation on going back to the old ideas and prepare a “groovy midtempo album with progressive influences” or whatever that lazy crap would be called. I knew that if my new material would get “greenlit” we could easily do this album….but any major drawbacks would cause the time to run out shorter than an aging metalhead's breath on stage while performing those new songs in making.
  



STEP FOUR – Making it all possible.

Lucky for me, my idea for the album and the new songs were accepted and I could now breathe a bit more freely, knowing that the album is going to happen. Yay for good songs! Or non-communicative bandmates, whichever weighs more in this divine scale of absurdity.

Call it arrogant or whatever you wish, I had decided earlier that if we want this album to be done, I wouldn't be sending the first raw ideas for collective feedback anymore because there would be too much room left for interpretation and misunderstanding. That decision was made even easier during the process, as some of the members weren't interested on listening to anything or even talking to me, hah! And to be honest, I wasn't really interested to beg them to listen to the music either, as long as I had other members doing it and helping me out to not to fall into typical traps and manners of mine. Having been in this band for rather long time, I knew exactly the type of people I needed to work with the first iterations in this situation and all of them were available.

First of all, I needed someone who has a long history in the band, understands the bigger picture, can speak musical terms and has an ear for musical arrangements. Then, I needed a pair of fresher and even more objective ears with the ability to to specifically think of single song structures and the flow. And next from the list of people, I needed that someone who has the craziest, out-of-the-box ideas which I never think of myself. 

But most of all, I needed time.

Because it was October already, time was of the essence. 
In Ye Ancient Times- that being from the late 90´s to mid 2000´s for you younger readers- I used to do albums with my different bands in a frenzied pace. It was always the same pattern: technically 5-7 months of autistic, boneheaded composing and pre-production followed by a 2-4 weeks of studio time... boom, album out. Go touring, get inspired by other things, rinse and repeat with another band. Hell, at best, I put albums out twice a year! Then I started working full-time and it began to take 1-2 years for any new album. During the time I also started to concentrate even more on details on each album and my music and arrangements got more complex. Then kids happened. More demanding career happened. More demanding kids happened. Generally, life happened. It just wasn't possible to devote my life for making metal albums with such a pace anymore.

I told my wife that if I'm going to do this album in the Ye Olde Boneheaded Way, I'd need her to help me out with it. Luckily, as a fan of Finntroll, she also wants the goddamn album done! That meant that while she'd spend a considerable amount of time with the household, I'd spend that time at my studio room after work and in the weekends trying out things, changing arrangements, and screaming my lungs out for demoing the vocals while noticing my kids are standing behing me giggling as I finish a take. 

WILL THE BAND SUCCEED ON MAKING THE ALBUM? DOES THIS MARK THE END OF FINNTROLL? WILL TROLLHORN LOSE HIS MIND WORKING ON FUTILE BLOG TEXTS INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY WRITING MORE MUSIC?

Stay tuned for the next episode: "The Art of War, pt. II" where I will be talking more of the actual composing and pre-production process! This text become so long (hopefully not boring, though!) that for everyone's sake of sanity it will be split in two parts. Will there be drama? It's Finntroll, there's always drama. But let's hope it has a happy ending!